By Communications Department - Archdiocese of Miami
Homily preached by Archbishop Thomas Wenski on Oct. 12, at the installation of Father Ryan Saunders as pastor of Saint David Catholic Parish in Davie.
Well, I am back here at Saint David’s to formally install Father Ryan Saunders as your new pastor. Father, of course, has been more than a year as administrator. Now, we give him a new title, it is official, he is your pastor: new title, but the same job description, the same headaches, and – the same salary.
The Scripture readings today are challenging. A Sunday homily should address those readings even though we have to install a pastor and name the parish hall for your founding pastor, Fr. O’Reily. The readings do require that we give them careful thought – and pray over them.
When I was a kid and happened to be in a bad mood or just didn’t like what I was asked to do, my mother would give me a look and say, “Young man, I don’t like your attitude.”
As I said, the Scriptures today are particularly relevant because the first reading and today’s Gospel about the 10 lepers are about attitudes.
In the first reading, we encounter Naaman, a rich and powerful Syrian who had leprosy but is cured by Elijah.
In the Gospel, Jesus cures 10 lepers. Leprosy was a terrible disease in the time of Elijah and in the time of Jesus, even up to modern times. You may have heard the story of Damien, the priest who dedicated his life to serving a leper colony in Hawaii. Leprosy’s victims were shunned and feared. Thank God, today it has almost disappeared – it is a disease that can be treated and cured.
But in Elijah’s time and in Jesus’s time, it took a miracle to be cured of leprosy. That’s why Jesus told the 10 lepers he cured to go show themselves to the priests. Once their cure was verified, they would no longer be feared or shunned.In the first reading, the prophet Elijah cured the Syrian Naaman through the power of the God of Israel, which led him to praise God and recognize that the God of Elijah, the God of Israel, was the true God. His attitude, which at first was an attitude of disdain, became one of gratitude.
In the Gospel reading, 10 were cured by Jesus – but only one came back to thank him. His attitude was also one of gratitude. We can’t say the others weren’t happy about being cured. They probably went running to find their families, their loved ones, to show what happened to them. They must have appreciated what Jesus did for them. But only one of them, a Samaritan, had an attitude of gratitude. Realizing that he had been cured, he returned, praising God with a loud voice, and fell at the feet of Jesus, and thanked him.
That’s the attitude of gratitude we all should have, but often we don’t. People do good things for us, but we take them for granted. And we do take people for granted a lot. We take our parents, our spouses, our coworkers, our siblings, and our friends for granted. Instead of showing an attitude of gratitude, too often, we show an attitude of entitlement – it’s all about me. But the point of the Gospel is that it is not, it is not about me.
The attitude of gratitude that Jesus praises in the Gospel is what we should try to cultivate. If only one of the 10 lepers had it, it must not come naturally. We must work at it.
Now, every Sunday, the Christian community comes together to celebrate Mass. This is what generations of parishioners of St. David have been doing for over 45 years. And at Mass, we do what the Samaritan leper did: We praise God with a loud voice, and we fall at Jesus’ feet and thank him. Another word for Mass is “Eucharist,” and it means “thanksgiving.” At Mass, just like the lepers, we say, “Jesus, Master, have pity!” In fact, that’s how Mass begins: we acknowledge that we are sinners, and we pray: Lord, have mercy! Christ, have mercy!
Our leprosy is not a disease of the skin, but a disease of the soul, a disease of the heart. And just as the disease of leprosy separated the lepers from their communities, sin divides us from God and from one another. When we are honest with ourselves and acknowledge our sins, we feel sorry and know that we need God to heal us by his forgiveness and mercy. In the Eucharist, we listen to God’s word. He gives good news: God loves us and wants to heal us. And so, we praise God with loud voices – and, on our knees, we thank Jesus who shares his life with us in the communion of His Body and Blood.
A lot of times, going to Mass doesn’t excite us. We have many other things to do – and they are not necessarily bad things. And so, we might be like those nine lepers who were cured by Jesus, never thought to go back and thank him. We need that attitude of gratitude to remind ourselves that, as Catholics, Mass is so very important. In fact, going to Mass on Sundays (or on the vigil of Sunday) is what Catholics do. It’s what identifies us as Catholics.
Some people might say, “Going to Mass does not do anything for me.” But they’re missing the point. Christian life is not “all about me.” We don’t go to Mass just for Jesus to do something for us, or even to entertain us. In fact, you can go to one of those other churches, and what do you find up front: a stage. In a Catholic Church, our churches are not built around a stage but an altar, an altar of sacrifice. On the cross, Jesus made a gift of himself to us, so that in our communion in his body and blood, we can make gifts of ourselves to him and to one another.
We go to Mass to recognize what Jesus has done for us, and so, we go to Mass to do something for Jesus: to praise him, to glorify him, to thank him, to give ourselves to him. But whatever we do for Jesus, he’ll give back more than we can ever give him. For just like he told the 10th leper that his faith had saved him, he strengthens our faith and sends us out to tell the world how good God is.
So, when Sunday comes along, and your spouse or your parents tell you to get dressed for Mass, if you’re going to show any attitude, make sure it’s an attitude of gratitude.
Discipleship is a call to walk in the shadow of a master who makes his way of love with a cross on his back. You cannot do that casually.
And basically, Jesus tells his disciples (and us) the same thing. Jesus did not come to suffer and die for us and to rise from the dead to make us half-hearted, mediocre disciples hesitant to follow him wherever he would lead.
To follow Jesus will take us out of our comfort zones. Following Jesus will often be inconvenient because it requires us to give up our priorities and preferences to conform ourselves to his.
To be a disciple of Jesus means that he is to be preferred before all others. To answer Jesus’ call, “Follow me,” is both a gift and a demanding task, only possible through conversion of our minds and hearts, a conversion that allows us to embrace the cross and to see the world as Jesus sees it.
Your pastor, Fr. Ryan Saunders, is to teach you — by word and example — how to figure out how to be a disciple of Jesus.
Religious leadership is about leading others to Christ. It cannot be reduced to “smiles and styles.” The authority of a pastor is not about leading others to himself but to the Lord. He is not to point to himself but to point always to Christ.
As your pastor, Fr. Saunders, is entrusted with the “care of your souls,” what in Latin is called the “cura animarum.”
Father will serve you well. And he will do so not by calling attention to himself, but by calling attention to the Lord; he will do so not by seeking his own interests, but by putting first God’s will and his people’s good and well-being; he will do so not by trying to please everyone — for one who tries to do that usually ends up pleasing no one; but rather, he will do so by trying to please the Lord in all things and above all things.
May our attitude today and every day be an attitude of gratitude. And today, we are grateful for Ryan Saunders, pastor of St. David's.
