Tuesday January 14, 2003 (Audio) Homily by Fr. Robert Altier First Week in Ordinary Time
Reading (Hebrews 2:5-12) Gospel (St. Mark 1:21-28)
Saint Paul, in the
first reading today, talks about the manner in which God has subjected all
things to Christ. Quoting from Psalm 8, he tells us that God has made man
little less than the angels, but crowned him with glory and honor and subjected
all things under his feet. He is pointing specifically to Jesus in quoting this
passage and tells us that all things are subject to Him and that there is
nothing that remains that is not subject to Him. Yet, having said that, he then
turns around and says, At present, we do not see that all things are subject
to Him. Again, what we see is this mystery that everything has been subject to
Him. We know that everything is subject to Him. In fact, Saint Paul will go on
to say that He puts all things under His feet like a footstool; yet at the same
time, in the humility of Christ and because God has given us free will, He does
not let us see that everything is subject. So He allows human free will; He
allows us to make bad choices; He allows the demons to continue to torment us
even though everything is subject to Him. We will one day recognize everything
being subject to Him completely, even as it is now. The problem is that we do
not recognize it and the reason is that God allows us to make a choice. Do we
want to be subject to Jesus Christ? He will not force that on us and so we have
to make the choice.
In the Gospel
reading, we see that the demons are subject to Him completely; He commands the
evil spirits and they leave. The people were totally amazed. Who is this,
they asked, that he commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him? Well,
that is exactly the reality. If God commanded us in a direct manner, we too
would be subject to obedience. And so rather than doing that because He does
not want to violate us in any way He has told us what His commandments are and
then He gives to us the freedom to choose. He does not give that freedom to the
demons when they are commanded in His Name to do something because they have already
made their choice. They too have a free will, and they were presented with the
truth and they rejected it. They saw a beautiful Woman who was higher than they
and they could not accept it. They saw a little, tiny baby Boy, Who is God, and
they could not accept it. They used their free will, even with the knowledge that
they had, to reject the truth.
So too now, the
same is for us: God presents to us the truth; He presents to us a whole new
teaching with authority and we have to make a choice. Everything is subject to
Him. We can use our free will and subject ourselves to Him, which would be a
slavery of love; or we can use our free will and we can make ourselves slaves
to sin. It is entirely up to us. One leads to total freedom; the other leads to
complete bondage. If we are made subject to Him in freedom then we will reign
with Him, we will rejoice with Him, because His subjection is not one that
violates us in any way, shape, or form, but rather, it is one which exalts our
freedom completely. If we subject ourselves to Satan and his minions, we give up
our freedom and we will be slaves for all eternity. That is the choice we have.
Jesus, Saint Paul
says, is already crowned with glory and honor, and if we subject ourselves
willingly to Him and choose the freedom of the children of God which He offers,
then we too will be crowned with glory and honor. If we, on the other hand, choose
as Satan did and say, I will not serve. I will not accept this extraordinary
Woman and her beautiful Son, and we choose that we want to do it our way
instead of His way, then what we are doing is crowning ourselves with shame, we
are crowning ourselves with destruction and death. That is the choice we have, but
God will not force it. Everything is subject to Him and so if we choose to
reject Him then we are choosing eternity away from Him. We are not going to get
away from it; one way or the other, we will be subject to Him and we will be
subject to obedience to Him. We can choose it freely and we can go to Heaven
and we will find that obedience is total, complete, and perfect freedom; or we
will be subject to obedience by having to go away from Heaven to deal with the
obedience of our own choice and to go to hell where we will be with Satan for
eternity. But the choice is made now in this world, not in the next.
And so we have the
choice and we have the freedom. The truth is being offered; it is a whole new
teaching in the spirit of authority. Everything has been made subject to Him. The
question is now up to us: Are we willing to subject ourselves to Him or are we
going to wait and be subject to Satan for eternity? That is our choice. The
choice is obviously very clear. Even though we do not yet see that everything
is subject to Him it is and we know that. So we need to make the choice,
using our freedom to subject ourselves to His love and to His glory and honor
and to be crowned, then, with His glory and honor, which is to be crowned with
Jesus Christ and His life which can begin now and then remains forever.
* This text was
transcribed from the audio recording of a homily by Father Robert Altier with minimal editing.