Homily

How many people here today are you related to? Now, naturally, it might be a better question to ask how many people here today do you want to be related to? When we talk about being related to other people, the first thing that comes to mind is, are the people we are connected to because of ties of blood or adoption—or marriage—children, parents, grandparents, uncles, cousins, spouses, in-laws. Those are our relatives, the people we are related to. And yet of course, there are other ways of being related.

In today's Gospel Mary and Martha are sisters, so of course they are related, related by blood, by common parentage. But the second part of today's Gospel is from the next chapter of Luke, where a woman cries out that Jesus' mother is a blessed woman to have a son like Him. And, of course she is right. But Jesus takes it further by saying, "Rather blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it." In doing this, Jesus is not shutting Mary out from the title of blessed, as some people seem to think. That would be impossible. Jesus is not shutting Mary out, but He is instead including all who will become his followers. They too are also blessed, even if not in the same way as the Mother of God. We've heard the word of God, and we have tried to keep it. We may not have Mary's degree of holiness, but we are still blessed.

We are all related here, one to another, today. We are all related to each other not by blood, not by marriage but by adoption. We have been adopted by God our Father at the moment of baptism. We have become sons and daughters of the living God, not by our nature, but by grace. And since we all have the same Father, we are naturally brothers and sisters then to one another. We are children of God not by blood or marriage, but by adoption, and yet we still need to recall that we were able to be adopted because of the blood shed by our Savior, Who became a lowly creature so that we could be lifted up to glory. His blood was shed to make us kin with God, and kin with all those who bear the vocation of Christian. Our adoption was paid for in blood poured out not because of accident, crime or war, rather poured out in the extreme humility of He Who is True God. When God sheds His blood, He does it to create family ties, to make family life, by bringing those who are earthly and mortal into a life that is heavenly and eternal, a life in the Holy Trinity.

We did not all become children of God, nor did we become brothers and sisters because of marriage, and yet we are all members of the Church, which is, as St. Paul teaches, the Bride of Christ. As members of the Church, we have ties to one another, in a universal kind of way, a tie which all who have, do now, or ever will be members of the Church—ties not only to people all over the world, but also to people beyond this time and beyond this world. We have those extraordinary connections on such a grand and supernatural scale, but we also have them on a very local and particular basis, in this our parish, in this local reflection of the universal Church.

So who are you related to here? Everybody.

I genuinely and thoroughly dislike, or perhaps I should say hate, when Catholic Churches describe themselves as "a community of faith" or "the faith community of St. So and So." The word community is used to describe so many secular situations that it hardly describes what we are (e.g. "community service"). We are a church, we are a parish, which sets us apart from all other groupings of people that might use the word "community." We are not just a group of people who have faith. We are a local Body of Christ, and nothing less than that. The head of our parish, so to speak, is not the pastor, but Christ Himself. That's a bit different than some kind of "community of faith."

On the parish feast day, we celebrate our life together as a parish, especially by honoring the Lord, by paying fitting tribute to His mother, the patroness of our parish, celebrating her birthday. Last night at vespers, we sang that, "Today, the birth of Mary, is the beginning of joy for all the world, today winds blow with the news of salvation . . . He Who is God by nature takes from her what is foreign to Him and makes it His own; through her, Christ works salvation for those gone astray in the flesh . . . Let us, the faithful, cry out to her with Gabriel, "Hail, you who are full of grace; the Lord is with you, through you granting us great mercy!"

So today as brothers and sisters related to one another by adoption, won through the blood of Christ, joining us to His Bride in the Mystical Body of Christ's Church—today let's have a mind, a heart and a voice to rejoice in all that the Lord has done for us in our parish and in our individual lives, because we who have heard the word of God, and we who strive to keep it, we who have been adopted into God's own family life, we are truly blessed. So let's celebrate that today and give thanks to Him who has given all to us, even as we also thank the blessed Mary, Theotokos, for her prayerful protection and intercession. Through the prayers of the Mother of God, O Savior save us.