{"id":2773,"date":"2008-09-27T21:59:00","date_gmt":"2008-09-27T21:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2008\/09\/homily-for-september-28-2008-26th-sunday-in-ordinary-time.html"},"modified":"2008-09-27T21:59:00","modified_gmt":"2008-09-27T21:59:00","slug":"homily-for-september-28-2008-26th-sunday-in-ordinary-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/09\/homily-for-september-28-2008-26th-sunday-in-ordinary-time.html","title":{"rendered":"Homily for September 28, 2008: 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>In his book, \u201cThe Waters of Siloe,\u201d Thomas Merton tells the true story of a French businessman in the months after World War II. The businessman had been born and raised Catholic. But he\u2019d forgotten about his faith has he got older. <\/p>\n

During a business trip, he was checking into a Paris hotel late one night. As he passed through the lobby, he saw a young nun, alone, who just looked at him and smiled. He tipped his hat as he passed and went to the desk to sign in and asked the clerk, \u201cWho was that nun?\u201d <\/p>\n

The clerk said, \u201cWhat nun?\u201d <\/p>\n

And the businessman turned around and noticed that she was gone. <\/p>\n

\u201cShe was just there,\u201d he said. \u201cShe went by and smiled at me.\u201d <\/p>\n

The clerk said, \u201cYou must be mistaken. Nuns don\u2019t go around at this hour of the night smiling at men.\u201d And then he added, \u201cMonsieur, you are the only one who has been in the lobby in the last hour.\u201d <\/p>\n

A few days later, while still in Paris, the businessman had dinner at the home of some friends, and noticed on the mantle a small picture. He went over and took a closer look. It was the very nun he had seen in the lobby a few days before. <\/p>\n

\u201cWho is that?,\u201d he asked. And he was told: \u201cThat\u2019s St. Therese of the Child Jesus\u2026Therese of Lisieux.\u201d <\/p>\n

Not long after that, the businessman went back to church. He began to pray again. He returned to the faith that he had abandoned so many years before. And in a matter of months, he gave up the Paris hotels and expense accounts and silk suits\u2026and lived in a simple brown robe, fixing tractors and tending cattle at a Trappist monastery in France. <\/p>\n

You\u2019d be hard pressed to find a more remarkable conversion. And it\u2019s one worth sharing and remembering as we approach St. Therese\u2019s feast on Wednesday, October 1st. <\/p>\n

Conversion in one way or another is at the center of this Sunday\u2019s readings. The scripture calls us to repentance, to change. God asks us to redirect our lives. Ezekial writes of \u201cturning away from wickedness.\u201d <\/p>\n

And St. Paul points the way. <\/p>\n

\u201cDo nothing out of selfishness or vainglory,\u201d he writes. \u201cRather, humbly regard others as more important than yourselves\u2026each looking out not for his own interests, but also for those of others.\u201d <\/p>\n

Make yourselves, he writes, like Christ. That, of course, is the very essence of what we are meant to be. That is what it means to be Christian. But how many of us truly live up to the job description? We hear the gospel every Sunday. We receive the message. And so often, it\u2019s gone by the time we hit the parking lot. <\/p>\n

But in Matthew\u2019s gospel this Sunday, Jesus summons his followers to something better than that. Tax collectors and prostitutes, he tells them, are changing their ways. They\u2019re \u2013 in effect — working in the vineyard. Why aren\u2019t you? <\/p>\n

We could all ask ourselves: why aren\u2019t we? <\/p>\n

I had lunch recently with a friend who had attended World Youth Day in Sydney, and he told me about something one of the bishops said in a homily. \u201cAll of us have one thing in common,\u201d he said, \u201cincluding me. We all have something keeping us from committing totally to Christ. What is it?\u201d <\/p>\n

It\u2019s a challenging question. Answering it may tell us more than we really want to know about ourselves. But it can leave us changed. And it can change those around us as well. <\/p>\n

Consider the story of Thomas Merton. His conversion story is one of the most famous in the American church. And it affected countless people, even to this day. Merton spent a number of years living in Douglaston, taking the Long Island Rail Road into the city. He was a cigarette-smoking, jazz-loving, girl-chasing poet and struggling novelist who, while working on his master\u2019s at Columbia, found himself drawn to the Catholic Church. He was baptized in 1939, and two years later gave up everything he had to become a Trappist monk at a monastery in Kentucky. In 1949, he wrote his autobiography, \u201cThe Seven Storey Mountain.\u201d It became a bestseller and prompted thousands of vocations. 50 years later, one of the vocations it helped inspire was my own. <\/p>\n

Conversion isn\u2019t a one-time event. It isn\u2019t a moment. It is thousands of moments. It is a lifetime of moments. And it never ends. When he became a monk, Merton took a vow of \u201cconversatio morum,\u201d conversion of life. It means a total re-orientation of who you are and how you live \u2013 turning continually toward God, and allowing God to work in you and on you and through you. It is learning to love, truly love. <\/p>\n

Loving, and growing in love, is part of our lives as Catholic Christians \u2013 part of our own ongoing conversion in each. The effort is unceasing. <\/p>\n

When I was in high school, one of my teachers used to wear a pin that said, \u201cPlease be patient, God isn\u2019t finished with me yet.\u201d <\/p>\n

It\u2019s true. He isn\u2019t. God isn\u2019t finished with any of us. But he asks us to work with Him, to collaborate with Him. <\/p>\n

He invites us to be a part of His great work \u2013 calling us to be like Christ. <\/p>\n

The call may come in ways we never expect \u2013 through people we never imagined we\u2019d meet in a hotel lobby. Or it may come in a more ordinary way, in a quiet voice that speaks to the heart.<\/p>\n

As the gospel reminds us today, the invitation is open. The opportunity is always there. <\/p>\n

My friends, the vineyard is waiting for us. <\/p>\n

What are we waiting for?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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Prior to that, Deacon Greg worked for 26 years as a writer and producer for CBS News, where he contributed to \"The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric,\" \"60 Minutes II,\" \"48 Hours,\" (Emmy Award, Writers Guild of America Award) and \"Sunday Morning.\" He was co-writer for the acclaimed documentary \"9\/11,\" hosted by Robert DeNiro. (Emmy Award, Christopher Award, Peabody Award, Writers Guild of America Award.) His radio essays were featured in the bestselling book \"Deadlines and Datelines\" by Dan Rather. He's also a two-time winner of the Catholic Press Association Award. Other places you may find him: AMERICA, U.S. CATHOLIC, CATHOLIC DIGEST, REALITY (Redemptorist Communications) and THE BROOKLYN TABLET. He also contributes homiletic reflections to the parish resource CONNECT!, published by Liturgical Publications. In November 2009, he began serving a three-year term as a consultant to the Communications Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Deacon Greg grew up in Maryland (Go Terps!) but he and his wife today live in the beautiful borough of Queens, New York. You can contact Deacon Greg at dcngreg@gmail.com.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/author\/gkandra"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/204"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2773\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}