25^th Sun Ord Time SJU 2026  (Golden Hawks Mass  9/20)

 

In general I celebrate a public Mass every Sunday, sometimes with young audiences, sometimes with families, sometimes in religious communities.   Despite the culture or age group, I never change the readings that the Church has assigned for that particular Sunday.    I preach about them, even those not suited for a given congregation.  We play it as it lies.      But today the readings assigned for the Sunday Mass are quite fitting for a group of us who are experiencing the mature years.   In fact it is hard to imagine more fitting readings for the Golden Hawks, and for us other golden agers.   

These selections from Scripture address some of my complaints over the years.   As I grew older, for example, I started to complain to Jesus Christ himself.   Yes, God in him experienced human life and terrible sufferings, too.   But God in Jesus Christ does not know what a mature human life is like; God in Jesus Christ does not know what growing old is like.   Sometimes I complain about this but some of God’s general responses are in the readings today.

In the first reading from the Book of Isaiah, for example, I quote: My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD.  (repeat)  God has clear words here for us Golden Agers:  The Father of Jesus says, “Jesus could not do everything in human experience.   For you Golden Agers I have chosen a longer life so that you can help me understand what a longer life is like.”   Yes, many of us in the chapel today are helping God understand mature human life, filling up what was missing in Jesus’ life.

And in the second reading the apostle Paul in his own mature years, addresses his friends in the community in Philippi with these words: that I (Paul) remain in the flesh rather than die in Christ is more necessary for your benefit. (repeat) We can imitate Paul and address our families and friends this same way.   We seniors remain in the flesh for their benefit.  Christ choses us to grow old for the benefit of others.

And finally our gospel reading: here Jesus tells the surprising story of the generous landowner who on a certain day pays each of his day workers the same standard daily wage.   It matters not whether they started work early in the day expecting the standard daily wage or came late and only worked for an hour or so.  When those who worked all day saw the standard daily wage given to those joining in the work only in the last hour, they complained.  Who would not?    So Jesus ends the story with the question that the landowner asks the complainers who worked all day:  ‘Are you envious because I am generous?'  (repeat)   Yes, not only are they envious, they are angry at being treated like fools for getting up early.

We Jesuits still surviving from my large first novitiate class in the Jesuits, are only a small number, now surviving 67 years.  The first of these Jesuit colleagues to die was a young priest teaching at St. Joseph’s Prep in 1974, Bill Moody.   A tragic loss.   Now I think of him as having at least an extra 52 years of heaven that I will never have.   Not that it makes much difference in the timeless kingdom of heaven.   But sometimes I am envious and sometimes can get more so as more of my friends reach heaven.          God, however, is generous either way.   All divine gifts: some present Bill with 52 years of heavenly life and some present me with 52 years of human life.    And I have a sense that Bill is among the first to pray for me and our Jesuit mission here in Philadelphia.  Let us remember God’s words in our first reading: My ways are not your ways.

So the message is clear for all of us: God has a plan for us that might change the way we plan for ourselves.    God always for us has in mind lives that have the potential for love and care of others.  And finally whatever our measure of evaluating the gifts that we have received, each of us is the product of God’s specific generosity for us.          

This gospel of God’s generosity reminds me of the final scenes of the Evelyn Waugh novel, “Brideshead Revisited”, memorable also as a movie.   In those scenes the patriarch of a wealthy English Catholic family accepts the sacraments on his death bed after a faithless life of lax living.   When asked by a priest at his bedside if he wants to receive the sacraments, the barely conscious man struggles and dramatically makes the sign of the cross.  His unexpected pious death rekindles faith in his daughter and the novel ends with a visitor to the mansion finding a prayerful peace while praying quietly in the mansion’s Catholic chapel.

This story comes into my mind because I knew a nun who also read the novel but she was scandalized that any author should think that God would welcome this sinful man into heaven.   I rephrased for her the sentence from today’s gospel:   “Are you jealous because God was generous to this man who had not born the heat of the day?”

Whatever our personal circumstances, it is clear that after 175 years our University will continue to bear the heat of the day staying alert to the different needs of our community.  Of most importance to us as a Catholic University has been the development of Catholic Social Teaching since the publication of the encyclical Rerum Novarum in 1891.   This teaching has encouraged our contributions to the common good.    Grandly now, of course, SJU provides a professional education for women and for minorities and the underserved.   And in smaller matters:  In 1851 who would have thought that a group of students preparing for medical careers would often walk the streets of Kensington to treat the skin wounds of the addicted?   Who would have thought that students considering teaching careers with the neurodivergent would have face to face opportunities to learn directly in service with autistic children?    Who would have thought that student-led groups would take the opportunity to pray on the streets of Philadelphia at an abortion clinic or an immigration office?   And in the sphere or worship: Who would have thought that what was rare in 1851, that is, receiving communion at Mass, is now normal each day for students in the University chapel?  

And more generally: Who would have predicted that St. Joseph’s would have an Institute studying business ethics now in an age when the practice of justice is an essential addition to our faith?    Or an Institute dedicated to a dialogue of Jewish and Catholic scholars in the spirit of a 1965 Vatican document, a document that would have provoked a general backlash among the Jesuits of 1851?  And while it is likely that many of the students in those first University classes served in the military during the Civil War, still who would have predicted our own Air Force ROTC program preparing students for leadership in the Air Force.   And this while also the University offers plenty of support for the education of Veterans.   Yes, our University continues to bear the heat of the day, pharmacy, many health care programs, leadership programs especially for women, the list goes on.

Just as St. Paul spoke about himself, we can speak of our University: That St. Joseph’s University remains in the flesh rather than dies in Christ is more necessary for the common good.   Always!  Forward!  Ad multos annos!