Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Sunday Mass - Feb 13, 2022 - Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Fr. James Wallace
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Homily Video

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time Homily Transcript

>>So today is Super Bowl Sunday. Now we film these masses well in advance, so I don’t know if the Bears are playing in this. I doubt they are. So, I’m going to talk about another football team that is near and dear to my heart, and that is the Main South High School football team. The varsity football team, the Main South Hawks. I’m a pastor in Saint Paul of the Cross in Park Ridge, and I have been going to Main South football games for a number of years now. And when I go, I’m often on the sideline with the team and I will throughout the game, focus on particular positions or areas of the field, as opposed to just kind of watching the overall field and just watching, you know, the ball or the quarterback. And what I’m amazed about football players and teams, but successful teams like Maine South and they’ve won a number of state championships. Is how selfless they are. They each perform their particular role, even if it doesn’t bring them glory.

So, for instance, the defensive lineman, the interior lineman will not even try necessarily to tackle the running back or get a sack on the quarterback. But they’ll slant and they’ll take up a lot of positions or a lot of space on the field, allowing other players like the linebackers or the safeties or the cornerbacks to go ahead and make the tackle. So, the interior linemen aren’t thinking about themselves, they’re in a way sacrificing themselves for the greater good.

Or, for instance, on offense. Are you still with me here, folks? What any football fans out there on offense, the tight ends have to block. Now obviously, there will be times when they catch the ball, but there is a saying that the team has is: ‘If you don’t block, you don’t get the rock.’ Now blocking is not glamorous. Blocking is hard, it’s drudgery. It’s again, it’s not pretty. You don’t get a whole bunch of fans and notoriety for that, but it gets you the ultimate goal. If you don’t block, you don’t get the rock.

The rock being the ball, but also the rock being the state championship ring. So anyways, the cross is there in the Main South football team, that is there denying themselves – they’re doing their job, even though it’s not bringing them necessarily immediate satisfaction and glory and gratification. It’s the cross, but they’re getting something greater in the end. Hints of the resurrection are there for them, like Saint Paul seen in our second reading.

Without the resurrection, without the resurrection in Jesus Christ, life is meaningless and we don’t have the resurrection without the cross. So, the cross now is present in the Beatitudes, in our gospel here. So here we are in the gospel of Luke. It’s called the sermon on the Plain versus Matthew’s, which is called the sermon on the Mount. So, Jesus comes down on a stretch of level ground. Some think this is just another telling of the sermon on the Mount the Beatitudes, some think Jesus actually preached this homily twice. He repeated himself, so Matthew goes up on the plain, gives a bunch of beatitudes. Luke, he comes down. I’m sorry, Matthew goes up on the hill. Luke comes down to plain. Luke gives four succinct beatitudes. But then Luke also gives these woes. Right?

Woe to who are rich. So, the Beatitudes are indications of the cross. Blessed, are you who weep. Blessed are you who hunger. Right? Blessed you who are in or insulted. So, when we weep, when we’re hungry, when we’re insulted, it’s painful, it’s the cross. But we’re dying to ourselves for the greater good. Your reward will be great in heaven one day. So friends, the cross is somewhere in your life. It’s there. There’s an opportunity for you to deny yourself to not get glory, but to do it for the greater good. Where is that cross present for you today? And can you take up your cross and follow the Lord and receive your reward in the Kingdom of God?

Amen.

Readings

First Reading:

Jer 17:5-8

Second Reading:

1 Cor 15:12, 16-20

Gospel:

Lk 6:17, 20-26 (78)

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