Tuesday – 11th Week in Ordinary Time – A

I would like to start today by reminding you, our faithful listeners and readers of our homilies, that the emphasis of this website is to proclaim the Gospel to you in a way that resonates with your lives and which the life of Saint Francis of Assisi himself can illuminate. And so we decided to call this website FranciscanPreacher.com because we would like to intersperse within our homilies examples from the life and teachings of Saint Francis.

So too we will do today. From the First Book of Kings, in the first reading, we pick up from yesterday's story about Naboth, who had that vineyard close to the palace of King Ahab. And Ahab really wanted that vineyard in order to transform it into a vegetable garden. But after offering Naboth money and perhaps even a greater vineyard, Naboth refused. And he said, God forbid I should get rid of this vineyard because it was bequeathed to him through his ancestors by God. And so instead of Ahab admiring that and accepting that, no, he went home and sulked, and his sadly to say evil wife said, “Don't worry, honey, I'll get that vineyard for you.” And instead of Ahab stopping her, he allows her her own devices. And so she plots the murder of Naboth.

My brothers and sisters, today's reading picks up from that murder, and we read: “After the death of Naboth, the Lord said to Elijah the Tishbite, start down to meet Ahab, king of Israel, who rules in Samaria. He will be in the vineyard of Naboth, of which he has come to take possession. This is what you shall tell him: The Lord says, ‘After murdering, do you also take possession? For this, the Lord says: “In the place where the dogs licked up the blood of Naboth, the dogs shall lick up your blood too.” Ahab said to Elijah, “Have you found me out, my enemy? Yes, he answered, “because you have given yourself up to doing evil in the Lord's sight, I am bringing evil upon you, and I will destroy you and will cut off every male in Ahab's line, whether slave or free man in Israel.” (1 Kings 21:21) And then he says against Jezebel: “The dogs shall devour Jezebel in the district of Jezreel.” (1 Kings 21:23)

My brothers and sisters, our passions, our greed, our coveting, our jealousy, our envy, if left unchecked, can lead to horrific tragedies, sins that are unspeakably evil. What does Ahab do? How does he respond? When Ahab, and I quote again, “heard these words, he tore his garments and put on sackcloth over his bare flesh. He fasted, slept in sackcloth, and went about subdued.” (1 Kings 21:27) And this touched the heart of the Lord, because then the Lord said to Elijah the Tishbite: “Have you seen that Ahab has humbled himself before me? Since he has humbled himself before me, I will not bring the evil in his time. I will bring the evil upon his house during the reign of his son.” (1 Kings 21:29)

Okay, so back to Saint Francis. For Saint Francis of Assisi, penance, as we see exemplified in Ahab's response to the prophet Elijah, was not primarily about punishment or a kind of self-hatred, or merely performing acts of mortification. No. It was a lifelong conversion of heart. For Saint Francis, penance was a turning back to God with one's whole life. One of the most important sentences Francis ever wrote is found in his Testament, the testament that he left to be read after his death, where he says: “The Lord gave me, Brother Francis, thus to begin to do penance.”

Notice he didn't say that he began to pray, preach, or even found three Orders. No. He said he began to do penance. For him, the entire Christian life flowed from that beginning because Francis understood penance according to the Gospel call: “Repent and believe in the Gospel.” (Mark 1:15) The Latin word poenitentia meant a change of mind and heart, a radical turning toward God. For Francis, someone doing penance abandons sin, seeks God's will, lives the Gospel sincerely, and continually allows God to transform them from within. This is why the earliest Franciscans were often called the Brothers of Penance.

Penance includes reconciliation. Francis saw penance as inseparable from restoring relationships. And the greatest relationship that is restored through penance, after we forgive our enemies, after we love those who are difficult, after we reconcile divisions, is that relationship with God Himself.

My brothers and sisters, in today's Gospel our Lord speaks of the heroic virtue that we need in order truly to live penance the right way. “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies.” (Matthew 5:43-44) “For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? Do not the tax collectors do the same?” (Matthew 5:46)