In the daylight of God’s grace
- September 06, 2009
At a Mass celebrating the 100-year anniversary of Star of the Sea School in San Francisco, Archbishop George H. Niederauer delivered the following homily Sept. 6 at Star of the Sea Church.
Our Jewish sisters and brothers have a story about a young student who asked his rabbi, “Teacher, how do we know the exact moment when night has ended and day has begun? Is it when we can no longer see the stars?” The rabbi answered, “No, my son, we know that night has ended and day has begun when we can look into the face of a stranger and see that he or she is a brother or sister.” In that sense, then, when Jesus tells us that feeding the hungry is the same as feeding him, he is describing the “daytime” of grace—when we look at the stranger and see our sister or brother.
In our gospel story today Jesus is in pagan territory. His fellow Israelites would say that he is among strangers, or worse. But Jesus did not see a Gentile or pagan deaf man, he saw a brother in need, and he healed him. Jesus Christ teaches all his followers, all Christians, that they are to see and serve him in one another and in all those they meet. Thinking about the story of the rabbi, we can say that now, in the daylight of God’s grace we see everything and everyone in the light of Christ, in the light of his example and his teaching. When Jesus says, “I am the Light of the World,” he is not talking vague poetry; he wants to be the light of your world and mine, the light by which we see and respond to everything and everyone.
That is the difference Star of the Sea School has been making for 100 years. Faith and hope and charity are not just for religion class. Generation after generation of schoolchildren here has learned language, science, literature, history, the arts, and so much more. Everything they learned, though, was taught to them in the light of faith. Those students didn’t just hear about water and air and land and sea; they learned about the loving Father who made all those things for them to share with others. The Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, the priests and the lay people who taught here gave of their talents and their lives so that all those children could become witnesses to, and followers of, the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
The world around us tries to teach children its own lessons; it always has. Lessons like, “Take care of Number One—Yourself—because no one else will” Or “Trust no one—that way you’re safe” or “Greed is good.” Those can often be the values of the world around us, but they are not gospel values. Star of the Sea School does not offer a value-free education. Ultimately, there is no such thing as a value-free education. If we do not choose our values carefully, we will choose them carelessly or automatically. But we will choose and we will act. When it comes to spiritual and moral values, the person who stands for nothing will fall for anything. By contrast, Star of the Sea School teaches its students about everything under the sun, but it teaches all of it in the light of the Son, the Son of God, Jesus Christ the Lord.
The way we treat people expresses the values we live by. Notice the way Jesus Christ treats the deaf and mute man in the gospel story today. Jesus is sensitive to the man’s self-consciousness, to his fear and embarrassment, so he takes the man off by himself, away from the crowd. Our Lord touches the man: he puts his fingers in his ears; he uses saliva, which, in those days, was thought to have healing powers (probably the deaf man thought that); Jesus looks up to heaven and prays; then, he speaks—“Ephpheta—be thou opened!” Jesus treats the man as an individual, not as just another case. You and I know the meaning of that distinction: if someone in authority treats you with respect and concern, you feel dealt with as an individual; on the other hand, if someone treats you as just another case to be processed, you feel it and you know it. For Jesus Christ, no one is “just another case.”
Jesus uses signs and symbolic actions in his healing of the deaf man, and that is an example the Catholic Church has taken to heart. In our seven sacraments we use symbol and gesture, we use water, oil, bread and wine, as well as words, to express this holy meeting between God and us that is a sacrament. In the Rite of Baptism, the priest or deacon touches the ears of the one to be baptized, saying the word that Jesus used in the gospel story today, praying that the person’s ears will be open to hear the Word of God, and to embrace it and live it with joy.
In our second reading, the Apostle James gives us a practical application, in our own lives, of the example of Jesus. James says to the members of the Church that each person, rich or poor, should be treated impartially. We should not show favoritism to someone because of status, or power, or wealth or fame. That is a strong challenge to us as human beings. We can be greatly tempted to play favorites, so we have to be on guard against doing so, because Jesus comes to us in each person, not just in our favorites. Jesus Christ was born in a borrowed stable and buried in a borrowed tomb. He lived and died a poor man, and he commanded us to serve him in the neediest of our neighbors.
James is explicit about this as a lesson for the Church. He describes the negative example of a leader in the Church who gives a special place of honor to a rich man and then tells a poor man to sit anywhere he can. In the early Church, masters and their slaves sometimes worshipped together, a situation that challenged Church leaders. That challenge of impartiality and even-handedness continues in different ways for leaders in the Church today, and sometimes we can fail.
At its best, the Catholic Church welcomes and gathers together all her children. In New York City in the last century, Dorothy Day spent her life in service to the poorest of the poor. In her autobiography she described her spiritual journey from the Communist Party to the Catholic Church. When she first started to visit Catholic churches in New York, she was surprised to see such a wide variety of people all praying together in the church: rich and poor, the educated and the uneducated, young and old, people of different races who spoke dozens of different languages and came from countries all around the globe. Ms. Day said she had never before seen such a mix of different people in one place except in a railway station! In Greek, the word “Catholic” means “universal” and our Church is most truly herself when she is most welcoming.
We give thanks today for all the teachers, students, administrators, parents, and employees who have made possible so many years of service to Catholic education at Star of the Sea School. We give special thanks for the priests and religious who have served her down the years. The profile of the students in this school has changed, especially with regard to language and race and nationality. But the mission of the school remains the same: to move young people from information, through knowledge and understanding, toward wisdom and service to others, guided by faith in Jesus Christ, the Light of the World.
From September 18, 2009 issue of Catholic San Francisco.
