Fr. Dave Pivonka, TOR - Friday Morning Homily (2021 Priests, Deacons, Seminarian's Retreat)

[Music] [Music] so i need to reboot just for a second i had masks for the students this morning for our incoming freshmen so i need to make sure i don't give the same homily that i gave to a group of incoming freshmen acne no breaking up with girlfriend no i think we're good all right we're good um yeah just i i thought really honestly beautiful beautiful scriptures for the end of our time together paul says to the corinthians i just have to get this first off the the students like to get pictures when i have my glasses on so they're all like they think i look old so um if i must boast i will boast to the things that show my weakness it's not just like talking about it but he he wants us to be able to see it and you know i mean i think if we're honest that just kind of stirs us a little bit because we spend so much of our time rather than allowing people to see our even see our weaknesses but to boast of them and we spend a lot of our time actually trying to shield it you know what can we do to shield it so that people don't see our weakness that that they think we've got it all together so we try to present this this image of you know everything's great everything's wonderful see how amazing strong and all these kinds of things and paul says if i must boast i will boast of the things that show my weakness so i mean we could stand up here and said you know how disorganized i am or how i procrastinate or how at times i put things off or i'm not honest or all these kinds of things right that paul says that he's willing actually to boast of these things how much time do we spend actually trying to present ourselves in a manner that allows us to be seen in the best light possible with everything together father's amazing deacon's so great see him with his kids father's just great right and paul's saying i i boast of my weakness but not just the books i boast of the things that show it so not just in principle i boast of the things that people are able to see it and shows them my weakness and why would he do that i think first off and i think it's important for us to recognize this the first off is the reason paul would boast of his weakness was because he was weak and that's true it's simply truth so if we're going to preach the truth if we're going to preach the whole truth that we talked about part of our experience and part of our reality brothers is we are weak amen we ought not apologize for that because what we understand when paul is speaking about this is that there's something actually really something beautiful about that but it's also the way that he's going to engage the community he's talking to because he goes the first thing he goes off with his whole list of things that he's done you know i'm a good jew i'm a good priest i'm a good deacon i'm a good catholic and whatever but then he goes and he says five times to the jew i received 40 lashes minus one i was beaten with rods once i was stoned i'd like to talk a little bit more about that some other time certainly didn't inhale but whatever right right three times i was shipwrecked i passed through the night in the deep on frequent journeys and then he goes dangers in rivers dangers from rogers danvers my own race dangers and the gentiles dangers in the cities dangers in the wilderness nations in the sea dangerous and we just go through this whole list of things all right so you look at this and it's like paul you're the dude i mean seriously you've gone through all this my my story would be another committee meeting another meeting right another budget meeting it's like whoa is my life right you got nothing over me paul right right but the problem is is that we look at this and that's why it's important that we see where he ends he looks at this and we could actually it's like that's not been my experience i mean my guess is most of us have never been beaten with a rod nev i was known to have has been stoned i won't even talk about that all right let's leave that but so this is not right this has not been our so paul puts this out but then what he goes is and he goes with all of this being said here's what i want to boast about i want to boast that i'm weak and the reason is is because the people that he's preaching to and the people that we're doing ministry to can compare can relate more to the fact that i can boast of my weakness than this then this this long list of how great and amazing paul was and he says but now what i'm going to boast about is my weakness i think what this allows us to do brothers is is it allows us to be seen as we are and if i try to present myself you know hello i'm father and i've got everything together and and whose story is that in our congregation and and how honest is it how true is it that i present myself without weakness and it's clear that we understand that when paul's talking about weakness he's not talking about sin those are profoundly different he's talking about weakness he's talking about the human condition he's talking about difficulty and struggle and sometimes being afraid sometimes being lonely and sometimes wondering am i doing what i'm supposed to be doing and straight in suffering in the midst of so paul that's that's what he's talking about and we need to be able to i think embrace us brothers because jesus was weak we hear and then this is an image that i don't think we pray a lot about you know the great jesus king of kings lord of lord savior redeemer alpha the omega all that absolutely true and hebrews tells us he's weak that we have a high priest who can sympathize with us because he was beset with weakness we we look at weakness as something that we need we need to get past we need to get over these weaknesses and what we hear paul says is not only i'm not going to get past them i'm going to embrace them and i'm going to boast of them we have a high priest who is weak and be set with that i mean imagine that i love the flipping text though isn't the form of god he emptied himself right that this canosis that jesus part of that is his weakness that he becomes vulnerable he becomes the almighty omnipotent all holy one is now limited in his humanity and he embraces that when i was in seminary uh one of the one things i had to read was an article we talked about how great you know you you meet a person a young guy it's like well this person's great he's amazing he'd be a great priest because he's he's perfect and he's smart and he's talented and he's engaging you know we should make this person a priest you know it was all of us right so we had to read this article and it spoke it's written for priests but i think it's true for all of us and it says uh that the title of the article is um because he was beset by weakness and the tenor is um not are you great enough to be a priest not are you great enough to be a deacon or a disciple are you weak enough are you weak enough how how are we going to be able to deal in our ministry with weakness with failure with difficulty the struggle and if we don't learn how to deal with that and we and please lord one day you have to embrace that weakness does everything fall apart and one of the things it does i think in this article that was really really beautiful was it makes this comparison between jesus who was beset by weakness and socrates and how they went to their death he says there's a classic comparison running through contemporary philosophy between socrates and christ a judgment between them in human excellence socrates went to his death with calmness and poise he accepted the judgment of the court discoursed on the alternative suggested by death and on the dialectic indications of immorality found no cause for fear drank the poison and he died jesus how much on the contrary jesus was almost hysterical with terror and with fear with loud cries and tears to him who was able to save him from death he looked repeatedly to his friends for comfort and prayed for an escape begged for an escape from death but he found neither finally he established control over himself and moved into his death in silence and lonely isolation even into the terrible interior suffering of a hidden divinity the app of what seemed to be god being absent i just i love reflecting on this image of jesus the night before he died and in this wrestling this back and forth and this ah there's got to be i mean this i can relate to that right if jesus would have just marched on up it's like here put the put the nail right here because it would be better but he didn't he wrestled with this and he struggled he's like lord there's any other way it is weakness and yet he ultimately as we hear he ultimately embraces it the author will go on to say now i believe that jesus was more pro a profoundly weak man than socrates more liable to physical pain and weariness more sensitive to human rejection and contempt more affected by love and hate socrates never expressed sorrow and pain over betrayal of his friends he was possessed and integral never overextended convinced that the just man could never suffer a genuine heart and for this reason socrates one of the greatest most heroic men that ever existed a paradigm of what humanity can achieve within the individual was a philosopher and for the same reason jesus of nazareth was a priest ambiguous suffering mysterious and ultimately salvific go ons to say weakness relates us profoundly with other people it allows us to feel with them the human condition the human struggle darkness and anguish that call out for salvation this is why paul can boast of his weakness because he knows that it's everybody's story and he also knows that in we're able to boast and recognize our weakness it's there that we find jesus i can stand up in in our giftedness and the things and the great things and all the things that paul suffered but it wasn't there that he needed jesus it was in his weakness and his brokenness and his struggle that's my story it's your story it's the people that we get to minister to this invitation to allow the lord to encounter us there and it is in there that we finally hear paul say and it's in my weakness that christ is made strong it's in my weakness and my recognition of my being able to embrace that that jesus is ultimately able to manifest himself and reveal to us this deep profound even in our strength and our greatness we we know we we need cognitively we know we need god but in our weakness we know we need god that place where we said i got nowhere else to go if you don't show up if you aren't here i don't know what i'm going to do it's there that the lord shows himself we celebrate that here right we're about to pray and the lord is going to transform bread and wine and he's going to once again show us his weakness and comes to us vulnerable broken bruised and he makes us whole brothers let us rejoice and celebrate our weakness amen you

Channel: Steubenville Conferences

Views: 102

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Steubenville Conferences, Catholic, Franciscan University, Catholic Ministry, New Evangelization, Youth

Id: 8tiPlt42B8A

Length: 12min 28sec (748 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 16 2021