Recommitting to a Life of Grace

HOMILY: Feast of St. Pio of Pietrelcina, Priest

Matthew 11:25-30

23 September 2022

Fr. Ricky Cañet Montañez, AA

None of us like people who are boastful. We may tolerate them, but we do not like them.  They get to be such noisy people, advertising excessively all the impressive things in their life. Look at what I bought with my money! Look at the people I associate with because of my power and influence! Look at the great things I have achieved because of my intellectual prowess! They speak as if their identity is dependent on all these things.  How silly! None of it truly belongs to us. Everything comes from God. We own nothing in this world. We are simply stewards. Everything belongs to God. 

In the readings today we are reminded that we cannot boast of anything. The prophet Jeremiah preaches that we cannot boast before God of our wisdom, valour, or riches. What we should strive to gain is an understanding and knowledge of the Lord who is just and merciful. St. Paul in the second reading says he can only boast of the cross of Jesus Christ, meaning he has come to accept Jesus and the way of suffering service and love. To Paul, it was not necessary to be circumcised or to have other bodily or outward markings to prove his belief in Jesus. Following the teachings of Jesus was more than enough proof.  Our gospel passage neatly ties in the message of both readings. Jesus, Himself, says that we cannot know God the Father without getting to know the Son. So, as we come to know and understand Jesus who is one with the Father, we come to know and understand our God. This is what should form our identity. This is what we can boast of — we are God’s children. He created us out of His love for us. 

Today we celebrate the Feast of St. Pio of Pietrelcina. He was a humble man. Never boastful of anything. He was obedient to his superiors. He only cared to love and serve the Lord, and for this Jesus revealed Himself to Him in very special ways. As we know he was gifted with the stigmata (the wounds of Christ) and he had the gift of healing. We know him to be a a very effective intercessor for healing of bodily illnesses but he also dispensed graces for the healing of souls. He was a much sought-after confessor! Even Pope John Paul II when he was still the young Father Karol Wojtyla in 1947 made a pilgrimage to the small town of San Giovanni Rotondo in Southern Italy to meet Padre Pio and to have his confession heard by him.

If we study closely the life and ministry of St. Pio as a priest, we would immediately realise that hearing confession was a major part of his daily activity.  St. Pio had the extraordinary gift of being able to look into the souls of his penitents — to see deeply into the heart of a person. It was not possible to lie to St. Pio during a confession. He proved to be very demanding in administering the Sacrament of Reconciliation. To encourage timid and hesitant penitents he would prod them by mentioning their sins during the confession. Sometimes, we are so embarrassed by our sins, we cannot even articulate them. Some people are so overwhelmed with regret but their shame prevents them from even speaking about their sins, much more confessing them to a priest. They end up suffering inside and it affects their well-being. To have a mystic like Padre Pio see a person in their secret sinfulness and still show mercy and compassion through the sacrament must have been a liberating experience for the penitent.

Regrettably, the Sacrament of Reconciliation is considered one of the least used and often most misunderstood among the Church’s sacraments in our time. Is it because there are some of us who do not think or feel they need God’s mercy? They are quick to reason that they do not consider themselves as sinners. “Di naman ako makasalanan.” “What is there for me to apologise for?”  Wow! Ikaw na! Mercy is not just for grave sinners. This is the default excuse of some people who choose not to go to confession regularly. They say, “I only have my usual venial sins so God will understand.” When they approach the sacrament, if at all, they spend most of their time justifying their faults and end up confessing the sins of others.  I actually get a lot of this in Confessions. A wife intends to confess how she has been neglecting her children but ends up rationalising her failings by emphatically enumerating her traumas from the exploits of her philandering husband. There is no true contrition there because the penitent does not even believe she is to blame for anything. We have to acknowledge that as human beings, weakness is part of our existence. No one is strong all the time. No one can resist temptation all the time. The sacrament is there precisely because God understands that it is a continuous struggle for us to follow Him. It is through reconciliation that God gives us the grace to be spiritually stronger so we can do better, sin less, and make better life choices. Imagine what you are missing out by failing to receive the sacrament? The doors of the confessional are wide open for us as they are the embracing arms of God the Father welcoming us back each time we are sorry for the mistakes we have made. 

One of the hardest things we may ever have to do in life is to apologise for the bad things we have done or to say sorry to the people we have hurt. Reconciliation always starts with admitting we were wrong; we are wrong. That is often not easy either because we tend to be too self-absorbed, proud, or fearful of the consequences. As Jesus says in today’s gospel passage: “I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike.” (Matthew 11:25) Because of our pride and hardheartedness, sometimes it takes something drastic to shake us back into our senses. In my experience as a priest, I have met people who were humbled by a life-threatening affliction, tremendous failure in business, devastating heartbreak, or the loss of loved ones. These moments become moments of conversion for many. These become the turning point of one’s contrition, where they realise their own failings and seek reconciliation with God and the people they have hurt. Contrition is defined as the “heartfelt sorrow and aversion for the sin committed, along with the intention of sinning no more”.  If we regularly receive the sacrament of confession, we will recognise at some point the sincerity and commitment we make as we recite the Act of Contrition.

We look to Jesus in humbling ourselves before God, who took on the ultimate punishment for humanity’s selfishness — death. He took on the punishment for our sins that we may have the chance to be reunited with the Father. On this Feast of St. Pio, let us find comfort in the mercy by which we are given opportunities to recommit ourselves to a life of grace. Let us not forget that our identity is in belonging to God and that we must always seek the Father through Jesus.