HOMILY FOR THE THIRTEENTH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR IN THE ORDINARY TIME – YEAR A

Rev. Fr. (Dr.) Osmond Anike

Readings:

First Reading: 2Kings 4:8-11, 13-16 – This is a holy man of God; let him rest here.

Responsorial Psalm:Psalm 88(89):2-3, 16-19 – I will sing forever of your love, O Lord.

Second Reading:Romans 6:3-4, 8-11 – When we were baptized we went into the tomb with Christ, so that we too might live a new life.

Gospel:Matthew 10:37-42 – Anyone who loses his life for my sake will find it.

Last Sunday, I told you that one of the deepest human cravings is for the truth; but that strangely enough, the first spontaneous human reaction to the truth is that of hostility. Today, we shall take up another deep human longing that has eluded humankind most of the time- the longing for happiness. There is nothing that humans do that is not directly or indirectly geared towards happiness. Every single one of our strivings, all our pleasure-seeking, our entire academic and business pursuits, etc., is for the single purpose of maximizing our happiness. Curiously too, even the crimes we commit give us one form of pleasure or the other (at least, that is what criminals believe). Now, this is where the whole thing becomes muddled up: why is it that everything we do is geared towards our happiness and yet, happiness eludes us most of the time? Why is there so much unhappiness in and around us? We might argue that the unhappiness around us is caused by oppression, war, hatred, loneliness, etc. Although most people would convince themselves that these and similar things cause unhappiness, the truth is, they would be wrong. In his book, Call to Love: Meditations, Anthony de Mello proposes that there is only one cause of unhappiness – the false beliefs we have in our heads. These beliefs are so widespread and so commonly held that it never occurs to us to question them. It was because of these beliefs that we see the world and ourselves in a distorted way. These beliefs have been so programmed in our heads that we don’t even question or suspect them; after all, everybody holds the same beliefs. They have become part and parcel of what we have come to know as human society. But we are created to be happy, not to be unhappy. If there is such widespread unhappiness, then it is time to step aside and question some of these beliefs that have been causing us unhappiness. To help us in this questioning, we turn to the second meditation in de Mello’s book. In this meditation titled “The Causes of Unhappiness”, he lists some of these false beliefs which we shall try to summarize below:

(A) The first belief is the belief that one cannot be happy without the things that one is attached to and can consider precious. But he insists that this belief is false because, there is not a single moment in your life when you do not have everything that you need to be happy. If we think of this for a moment, we shall realize that the reason why we are unhappy is because we are focusing on what we do not have rather than on what we have right now.

(B) Another belief is that happiness is in the future. But again, this belief is false. He maintains that right here and now we are happy, but we don’t know it because our false beliefs and our distorted perceptions have got us cut up in fears, anxieties, attachments, etc. He states that if we would see through this, we would realize that we are happy and do not know it.

(C) The next belief is that happiness will come if we manage to change the situation we are in and the people around us. Like the previous beliefs, this one is also a false belief. But because we never question this belief, we find ourselves making frantic efforts and wasting our energy trying to rearrange the world. What we don’t know is that rearranging the world will not produce happiness. What makes us happy or unhappy is not the world and the people around us, but rather the thinking in our heads. As he puts it, “if it is happiness that you seek, you can stop wasting your energy trying to cure your baldness or build up an attractive body or change your residence or job or community or lifestyle or even your personality”. This is because you could succeed in changing all these things and still not be happy. Or, like the Lebanese writer and poet, Khalil Gibran would put it, “Happiness is a vine that takes root and grows within the heart, never outside it”.

(D) Another belief is that if all our desires are fulfilled we will be happy. This, also, is a false belief because it is, in fact, these very desires and attachments that make us tense, frustrated, nervous, insecure and fearful. If we want to free ourselves from this false belief, we could do well to make a list of our attachments and desires, and to each of them, we could say the liberating words: “Deep down in my heart I know that even after I have got you I will not get happiness”.

Having discussed the false beliefs that cause us unhappiness, the natural question to ask is: what then is happiness? Well, there is good news and bad news. The bad news is that no one can tell you what happiness is because happiness cannot be described. How can you describe light to someone who has been in darkness all his life; or reality to someone in a dream? The good news is that you can attain happiness by understanding your false beliefs. If one understands his darkness, it will vanish, and the person will know what light is. When one understands his nightmare for what it is, it will stop and the person will wake up to reality. In the same way, if you understand your false beliefs, they will drop; and then you will know the taste of happiness. Unfortunately, people don’t want to understand their false beliefs because, first, they see them as facts and reality. Secondly, they are scared to lose the only world they know. Imagine someone who is afraid to let go of a nightmare because, after all, that is the only world he knows. This, unfortunately, is the picture of us as humans.

How are all this connected to the readings of today? Jesus says in Matthew’s gospel of today: “Anyone who prefers father or mother … son or daughter to me is not worthy of me”. In Luke’s version of this saying, he says: “If any one comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26). What Jesus is saying in effect is that genuine happiness does not come from attachment to parents, children, relations, property, etc. Every single thing you cling to and have convinced yourself you cannot be happy without is a nightmare. We don’t have to renounce these things violently (otherwise, we shall be forever bound to them).  All we have to do is to see them for the nightmare they are; and then whether we keep them or not, they shall have lost their power to hurt us. It is like somebody coming out of his dream. The nightmare will drop and you will see reality; the unhappiness will drop and you will experience happiness at last.