21st Sunday, Homily for Adult Children of Divorced

In the Gospel today, Jesus asked His disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” He wanted to know what other people thin of Him and to have the disciples express it. The disciples said, “Some say, John the Baptist, Others Elijah, Jeremiah and others a prophet.

But then He asked His disciples, “But, who do you say that I am?”

There must have been dead silence, until Peter said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” In other words, Peter was saying, Jesus is the Messiah. Jesus as the Son of the Father. Therefore, Jesus Himself is God.

Jesus has other names that could be given Him. Jesus is king. Jesus is Lord. Jesus is Savior. Jesus is a healer. Jesus is a moral teacher. Jesus is the rock. Jesus is a friend. Jesus is the redeemer. Jesus is the Bread of Life. Jesus is the way. Jesus the truth. Jesus is the life. Jesus is the Son of David. Jesus is the Mediator. Jesus is Emmanuel.

All of those titles in some way point to His death and Resurrection. For example, Jesus said, “There is no greater love, than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

Because Jesus healed the sick. The Pharisees would want to kill Him. Because He announced He is the Messiah at the synagogue by reading the prophet of Isiah, they attempted to throw Him off the cliff and kill Him.

The sign of above the head of Jesus on the Cross said, “This is Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.” That is why was condemned to death, because He claimed to be a king. Some of the Jews said, “We are not stoning you for any work, you have done, but for making you self out to be God.”

What I would like to do is go through some of the suffering of Jesus, so that we can understand our own wounds better in the light of the wounds of Jesus.

Before Jesus was crucified, He was scourged, then crowned with thorns. He was mocked and spat upon. He carried His Cross. He was stripped of His clothes. Then they nailed His hands and feet to the Cross. He was abandoned by all his Apostles, except John. While He was on the Cross, He was mocked and given sour wine to drink. He felt abandoned even by His Father. After Jesus died His side was pierced. His body was placed in a tomb and then 3 days later He rose from the dead.

Remember when He appeared to His apostles, he showed them His wounds in His hands, His feet and side. Then He ascended into heaven. It was like He held them up to the Father and said, “See my wounds Father, that I suffered out of love for You and for the people to bring to salvation.”
“Our Lord bore iniquities. He carried our sins to the Cross and nailed them to the tree. By His wounds we are healed.”

Through baptism, Jesus dwells inside us. Remember what Jesus said, “What you do to the least of my brothers, you do unto me.” So the way we treat others, is the way we treat Jesus and the way others treat us, is the way the treat Jesus.

Because Jesus is each of us, He feels everything we feel. When we are sad, Jesus feels sad. When we are lonely Jesus feels lonely. When we feel abandoned Jesus feels abandoned. When we feel neglected or rejected un-noticed, hurt, confused, angry, Jesus feels all these. Same is true for feeling happy or joyful.

Jesus is our friend, loves us, so much He feels everything, Our wounds are His wounds. St. Paul said, “We make up for the suffering of Jesus for what is lacking in the body of Christ, the Church.” Our Lord came to transform sufferings into glory. By His suffering on the Cross, He makes our sufferings special, powerful, worthy and noble.

No matter what kind of suffering we have, Jesus can transform it into graces that can be benefits us and others.

We heard the phrase, “Offer it up.” What does that mean?

Jesus offered up His life for us on the Cross and as a result we can obtain eternal salvation. By His suffering, death and resurrection. Jesus made it possible for us to go to heaven.

What we do when we offer up our sufferings, is we unite them to the sufferings of Jesus on the Cross and He takes those sufferings and transforms them into His redeeming graces for others.

Our wounds become a source of glory and love. There is great power in offering up your sufferings. St. Maximilian Kolbe had a printing press that produced a million copies a month called the Immaculata, which promoted devotion to the Virgin Mary. One day a reporter came to find out how these Franciscan friars, who lived a life a poverty could produce so many magazines.

St. Maximilian said, to the reporter, “Follow me.” He said the reporter walked down this long side-walk and went to a building. When he opened the door, the reporter saw a bunch of friars who were sick lying in beds. He pointed to them and said, “Here is the power behind our success. They are offering up their sufferings for our apostolate.”

But we can also offer up emotional sufferings or psychological suffering or spiritual suffering, anxiety, sadness, loneliness, suffering of misunderstandings and relationships.

At every Mass, the Holy Sacrifice of Jesus that occurred on Calvary becomes present on the altar. The crucifixion event truly becomes present at the words of Consecration when the priest says, “This is my body” and then later takes the chalice and says, “This is the chalice of my blood.” The Mass is like a time machine. We become present at that event that happened 2000 years ago. It's not representation, but re-presentation of Calvary.

At every Mass every person is supposed to offer their sufferings, their pain, sacrifices, wounds, our joys, our works, our very self with the bread and wine when they are offered on the altar and Jesus will offer all to the Father. At Mass Jesus mediates for us. Jesus shows God the Father, His wounds and our wounds.

He transforms our wounds into His wounds. They are like precious gems. More precious than gold or silver.

Today, when the bread and wine are brought forward. I want you to consciously place your wounds on the altar. I want you give everything to God as a gift. Offer your very self to God as a gift. Every day you can offer yourself, your wounds, your life to God as gift. Our sufferings can sanctify us and others and we can become holy. At Mass, we give our self to God and God gives Himself to us in the Eucharist.

What a beautiful exchange of love. In Holy Communion, the beating Heart of Jesus is united to our beating heart. Two hearts beating in love, oh what joy to be one with Jesus.

The physical union of Jesus and us lasts about 15 min, but we can always come and spend time with Jesus in the tabernacle or to an adoration chapel and gaze upon Jesus with love.

My friends, your wounds, are the wounds of Jesus. And those wounds when united to the Cross causes all of heaven to rejoice and give praise to the Trinity.

Finally, I would also like to make a suggestion and that is to try to place yourself in the shoes of your parents when they were children. Try to open your heart to have compassion for them.

What kind of events and experiences in their life happened to them which would cause them to later to treat you in a way you did not expect.

Could they have experienced events in their life that were traumatic and would later be a source for their adult behavior and they were never told you about them?

What kind of emotional or physical or spiritual wounds do they have from their childhood and throughout their life and now suffer from these miseries. We all suffer from original sin, our sins and the sins of others.

Our parents were wounded too. And Jesus wants to heal their wounds as well.

Jesus loves all of us infinitely, and He wants to bring peace to every human heart. How inscrutable are His judgments and how unsearchable His ways. For who has known the mind of the Lord or who have been counselor?

By our prayers, by us treating our parents with love by our virtuous actions toward them, we can be a source of healing for them by allowing Jesus to act through us.

It is very comforting to know that in heaven our relationships with parents, our family members, will be perfect. No division, no discord, no contradictions, In heaven we will all be a happy family united with the family of God. We will have eternity to get to know and love them in a way we could not on earth.

All our human desires will be more than satisfied and fulfilled.

Let us keep our eyes on Jesus in this life let us. Let us never forget Jesus is always with us and He is our friend, our deliverer, our healer, our rock, our Lord, our king, our redeemer, our savior, for truly He is the Son of the living God, and Mary is our Mother, the Mother of God, who prays for us and helps us on our journey to our eternal home, that last forever.