Have pity on me Lord, son of David.

Homily for the 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Sunday, August 17th 2008
By: Fr. Ron Floyd

Have pity on me Lord, son of David.

There is a reason why for almost the entire life of the Church the ancient Greek refrain—Kyrie Eleison Christe Eleison Kyrie Eleison Or Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy—has held a prominent place in the life of the Church. This two millennia old litany has always been close to the heart of the Church, because of our fundamental conviction of the weakness of our human condition.

As St. Paul notes: we are weak, but He (our God) is strong.

Central to the path to holiness, that each of us is called to is this admission, which we ritually make at the beginning of almost every Mass. The admission that we are in need, that in fact we can not succeed in our vocation, calling, and mission in life, without the help of God

Thus the plea of the woman in today’s Gospel have pity on me son of David, is in reality our plea!

Today’s gospel points out that it is natural to feel that we are not worthy of the call that we have been given to feel as if we are not worthy to be saints, to be holy that we are not worthy to follow God’s plan for us and you know in truth we are not worthy, none of us! But as I tell people all the time—inspite of and even because of our weakness our God has a plan for us a plan to make us his Saints, his Holy Ones.

Of course, at times because of our human weakness and fallen nature, we are all weak and we all sin. Our reluctance, however caused by shame, also is the result of sin, and of our pride, which doesn’t want to admit our sinfulness. Thus we, like the woman in the Gospel, must be humble before the Lord coming to him and crying out: Lord have Mercy, have pity on me Lord, son of David, because we know that when we do this He will always lift us up!

For the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable, as Paul tells us in today’s second reading. St. Paul brings us to the reason for my visit here today. You see St. Paul teaches us that inspite of our weakness each of us has an awesome vocation—a calling from God

In God’s plan for the restoration of the whole world each of us has a huge part to play, a part that we may never fully know or understand. This part, this calling, this vocation, is irrevocable—God never takes it away from us, even when in our weakness we reject or overlook it.

I am a newly ordained priest—I’ve been a priest for just under two months now and for the past five years I have been studying with 160 men for the priesthood of Jesus Christ. Men who realized their own unworthiness and yet overcame it, by crying out, Lord have Mercy and by trusting in God to provide them strength.

It is amazing how many of them, deferred God’s call. How many of them shied away from their vocation either they were too unworthy, too sinful, or because they though they were too weak to follow the amazing path to the priesthood.

One is a 50 year old accountant, a multi-millionaire who was the former CFO of an insurance company. Another was a division one college football quarterback who for years thought he would play football professionally. Another worked for years for the CIA. I myself for years deferred and ignored the call I had heard and felt in my heart even from childhood. Rather I follow the path of Law and politics in high school and college I spent so much time and effort on my plan for my life, and I was quite successful at whatever I did!

At 16, I was already working on campaigns, and already playing some dirty politics. By 19 I had my foot in the door, finding myself one of the youngest paid staffers working on Capitol Hill. By twenty I had been interview by ABC, CNN, and the BBC and I had already had the dubious privilege of being an anonymous source in a news paper article cited by Bill O’Reilly on Fox News.

But even though I was achieving my plans and my goals though I was financially comfortable, and fairly content by my Junior year of College I realized that something was wrong, I wasn’t truly happy—and my heart was not at ease. And so, after much prayer, and after making so many excuses I entered seminary—initially planning to give it a year and then leave, having realized that I was too weak and too sinful for the priesthood.

What I discovered though, rocked my world. I discovered for the first time in my life true happiness which came from trusting in God and doing His will, despite the difficulties and sacrifices of this vocation and my own weakness in the face of them.

Being a Priest is hard—impossibly hard without God because as a priest you are called to lead and build up God’s people. You are called to be another Christ: to wash people with the blood of the Lamb in Baptism; to purify and strengthen them with the fire of the Spirit in confirmation; to feed them with the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ at the Mass; and to heal and forgive them their sins in confession.

How can any sinful man do these things? How can sinful man dare to try to do these things?
For me they are impossible, but with God all things are possible. To be a priest is impossible for Man because in fact there can be only one priest the Man-God Jesus Christ. But, when we cry out in our need, as God’s people—God sends workers into the vineyard He calls and sends us Pastors, priests, just like his Apostles, who were weak fallible men, who act as proxies and representatives of Christ the High Priest.

In my experience, for those who are called to this vocation who are called by God to the priesthood not to dare, not to try, not to listen to the voice of God leads to a life that is sure to be full of regrets and emptiness.

You see, at the heart of all human suffering is the rejection of God’s plan for man and for the world. At the heart of all suffering is spiritual blindness and deafness. At times we have all been blind and deaf to the hidden voice of God speaking to us in our Heart. So at some point we all must cry out: Have pity on me son of David. And turning back to God, begin anew to listen to him.

Our God hears us when we cry out: Lord have mercy, Kyrie Eleison. When we cry to Him, He does heal us, because the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable. He heals us through the example and encouragement of others, He heals us through the ministry of good and holy priests, He heals us in the sacrament of penance and He heals and strengthens us at the Altar of God with His Body and His Blood.

As we approach that Altar – let’s lift our hearts and voices to God, asking him to have mercy on us to strengthen us, so that we may hear and listen to His plan for us, and act upon it.

And let’s pray, that more young men trust in God and despite their own weakness, consider a vocation to the Priesthood.

In our weakness God wants us to be Saints calling on him for mercy and strength. Let’s always remember to pray that God reveals His plan to us because it is in doing the will of the Father that we will find joy and peace here in this world and forever!