Deacon Phúc's homily for the Twenty-Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C - 9/25/2022)

The deacons preached this weekend. Below is my homily for the Twenty-Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C - 9/25/2022), preached at the 10:00 Mass:

Good morning. Earlier this week, I had to fill out a form that H.E.B. requires us to complete before they come next month and administer the flu shots at the office. It was a standard form, no big deal, until I got to the blank for age. As I wrote my age in the blank, this wave of emotions came over me and, I kid you not, I thought to myself: “Am I really 42 going on 43?” It dawned on that I am around the age my dad when he packed up our belongings and the five of us (including our pet goldfish) crammed into the family car - a 1989 Chevrolet Celebrity - and made the 3 day drive from Wallingford, CT to move to Houston, TX in the summer of 1990. As I stared at my age on the form, I thought, what would 42-year-old me tell 30-year-old me or even 20-year-old me? Then these words came to me - learn Vietnamese. The words convicted me because I cannot write or read in Vietnamese. I speak enough Vietnamese to stay out of trouble or get into trouble. At that moment, I realized that I share the same regret that my mom has because, growing up, she did not encourage me to learn Vietnamese and I had no desire to learn Vietnamese.

My sisters and brothers in Christ, we all have those “knowing-what-I-know-now-I-would-have” moments in our lives. Moments when we, like the rich man in today’s Gospel, long for the chance to “warn” our past self to change things or do things differently to avoid certain “pitfalls” in our lives. However, since time-travel is not possible yet, we can find comfort in this prayer by Saint Augustine to “trust the past to the mercy of God, the present to His love, and the future to His providence.” My wife and I work with couples who are discerning to get married in the Catholic Church, and this is what we encourage them to discern together. We talk with them about how things were in their families of origin, in areas such as money, roles and responsibilities, and faith and spirituality, and I share with every couple this bit of advice. I tell them that regardless of how things were in their family of origin, they cannot change what happened in the past; however, with the grace of God, the two of them have the opportunity in the present moment to make their marriage and family life how they desire it to be in the future. It always gives me such great joy when couples tell me that they are committed to going to Mass together as a family on Sundays despite their families of origin attending Mass only on Christmas or Easter growing up or not at all.

The way I see it, as long as God wakes us up each morning, we have another blessed opportunity to start anew, striving to cross over the “chasm” that separates us from who we are here to who God created and called us to be here. In that “chasm” is everything that we have done or that we have failed to do that separates us from God, and the only path across the "chasm" is through the Cross of the “King of kings and the Lord of lords.” Let us not squander our opportunities like the rich man did but live our lives as people of God, people who embrace our Christian identity and, as Saint Paul wrote to Timothy in today’s second reading, “pursue righteousness, devotion, faith, love, patience, and gentleness.” Let us “compete well for the faith” by persevering in keeping the commandments to love God and love our neighbors because we know by faith that this is how we “lay hold of eternal life, to which [we] are called when [we] made the noble confession in the presence of many witnesses” at our Baptism, when we were clothed with the white garment of our Christian dignity and promised to keep it without “stain or reproach until the appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ.” 

My sisters and brothers in Christ, Jesus sends us forth on a mission and calls us to be true and faithful Christians who not only carry our Cross and follow our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ but also help our fellow sojourners - the “Lazarus” of this world - carry their Cross. This means that we cannot and should never be content with merely being “cultural” Catholics because, according to a recent Pew Research Center study, “Christians are expected to lose their majority status by 2070, “ or as early as 2045, depending on the scenarios or models that the researchers run. We cannot be "cultural" Catholics who, if the Prophet Amos were here today in Austin, Texas (or the “ATX”), I would imagine that he might have this to say to us: “Woe to the complacent in Austin! Lying upon their beds in luxury condos, stretching comfortably with the latest technology and entertainment at their fingertips, eating Perry’s pork chops and drinking lattes and cocktails. Yet they are not made ill by their absence in the pews on Sundays.” God calls us to be more than lukewarm Catholics who have grown complacent and are content with mediocrity when it comes to living our Catholic faith and the mission of the Church in the society in which we live.

Saint Andrew Kim Taegŏn put it so beautifully when he wrote: “We have come into this world by God’s grace; by that same grace we have received baptism, entrance into the Church and the honor of being called Christians.” And here is the hinge: “Yet what good will it do us if we are Christians in name alone and not in fact? We would have come into this world for nothing, we would have entered the Church for nothing, and we would have betrayed even God and his grace.” Let us not betray God and his grace by being “cultural” Christians who are content with lukewarmness and mediocrity in the practice of our faith. Instead, let us be like these women of the Catholic Daughters of America, who are on fire for their faith and love of God and neighbor. Woe to us if the world does know we are Christians by our love - by our words and deeds. So let us go forth and be authentic believers and faithful followers of Jesus Christ, glorifying the Lord by our lives.