Jesus Performs Miracles at Capernaum,
William Brassey Hole, 1913

Translation of the Epistle for the 20th Sunday After Pentecost

Brethren: Keep careful watch over your conduct. Do not act like fools, but like wise men make the most of every opportunity, for these are evil days. Therefore do not be thoughtless; but know how to discern the will of the Lord. Do not get drunk on wine, for that leads to debauchery. But be filled with the Spirit, expressing yourselves in psalms, hymns and inspired songs, singing and praising the Lord with all your heart. Give thanks to God the Father always and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Defer to one another, out of reverence for Christ.

Continuation of the Holy Gospel According to Saint John

At that time there was at Capharnaum a royal official whose son was ill. When he heard that Jesus had come back from Judea to Galilee, he went to him and begged him to come down and restore the health of his son who was near death. Jesus replied, “Unless you people can see signs and wonders, you will not believe.” “Sir,” the royal official pleaded with him, “Come down before my little boy dies.” Jesus told him, “Return home; your son is going to live.” The man put his trust in the word Jesus had spoken to him and started for home. And when he was already on his way back, his servants met him with the message that his boy was going to live. When he asked them at what time he had shown improvement, they told him, “The fever left him yesterday afternoon about one.” Now it was at that very hour, the father realized, that Jesus had told him, “Your son is going to live.” And he believed and his whole household along with him. 

The Saving Words of the Gospel

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Transcription of Homily

On this 20th Sunday after Pentecost, the Church gives us this healing of Our Lord in St. John and this very packed message from St. Paul, so I thought I would unpack a bit of what Paul says for our own spiritual benefit. Paul seems to be doing something of a juxtaposition of what it means to be a follower of Christ and of the world; to be somebody who is configured with the Logos and somebody who is a puppet of the anti-logos. When we follow Christ, it’s not some ideological notion that we choose, but rather this is God’s own initiative of choosing us to follow Him and be configured with Him; to give ourselves to Him as He’s given Himself to us. It’s a calling to a relationship, not to an idea. It’s calling to a configuration with Him and not a political party, or anything less than total gift of self. And such an exalted vocation as this is definitely not of our own doing. It’s not our own initiative.

And Paul tells us how it’s to be done. He says, Keep careful watch over your conduct. Now the word careful is interesting, ακριβος (akribos) in Greek. Ακριβος is more than careful, it means be perfect. It also means be diligent. It means be circumspect. It means take care, look around you, be aware of dangers. – Not that we should be neurotic, but we have to be awake. – And this perfection reminds me also of what Our Lord says in the Sermon on the Mount, Estote perfecti sicut Pater in coelis perfectus est, which, you know, when we look in the mirror and we say, “Well, you know, Our Lord tells us to be perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect…” and we kind of don’t feel perfect- do we? – when we look in the mirror, and we consider our consciousness exam at the end of the day, we don’t see that. And nonetheless, it’s still a command, it’s not a suggestion. So what does this perfection look like?

Christ Teaching at Capernaum,
Maurycy Gottlieb, 1878–79

Well, certainly Our Lord is not setting us up for failure if He’s telling us that we have to be perfect like God is perfect. He’s not speaking in the order of physicality. He’s not speaking in the order of intellect. So, what is this perfection look like and where is it to be found? It’s to be found in Him. And He gives us Himself in grace. When He gives Himself to us in the life of grace, He comes to dwell within us. He makes of us living tabernacles. He dwells within us. And He infuses in our souls, not only His own divine presence, but He also gives us all sorts of gifts, namely the theological virtues, faith, hope, charity, which have Him as the source, but also as agent, but not without our own cooperation. And so, we can feel perhaps a bit discouraged when our Lord says, Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect, and nonetheless, He gives us all of the help we need in spite of the disproportion between ourselves and the goal to which we’re called to arrive at. And so, this is not merely a human endeavor. It’s not something of our own doing. It’s cooperation with Our Lord who makes it possible.

And Paul then takes the rest of this very brief lesson to show us what this walking with care looks like. He counsels us to this vigilance already mentioned, and then he makes these juxtapositions. Do not act like ἄφρων (aphrōn). Ἄφρων in Greek is somebody who is incapable of reflection, somebody who is incapable of transcending himself, and therefore is kind of a puppet to passions, somebody who would follow – you know – who lives in the moment of – you know – game shows, soap operas, TikTok, or whatever, and is incapable of seeing anything beyond the immediate. And he’s saying these are our choices. We can be puppets to our passions or we can be wize. And remember Christ is Wisdom itself. He is divine wisdom. He is the divine Sophia.

Make the most of every opportunity. And now this make the most is also an interesting word because rather than make the most it’s redeem. To redeem time. In other words, he’s saying that our time is in danger of being lost to something evil. Our time, which is such a precious gift and slips through our hands so easily, is in danger of being corrupted. And it has to be redeemed. Make the most of every opportunity doesn’t really catch the urgency of what Paul is saying. Make the most is a bit insipid as a translation. It’s redeem. It’s also ransom. This verb means ransom. Ransom time. We have to rescue it. Because of what?

Well, we’re in a fallen world. We also participate in a fallen world because of our fallen nature and our disordered passions. What are the wounds of original sin anyway that we all participate in?; mortality, a proclivity to malice, we have disordered passions. We also have a darkened intellect, according to Thomas Aquinas. And so, these are the challenges and, nonetheless, Our Lord comes to our rescue to help us rescue time through His loving presence and giving us the light of faith, giving us grace to reorder our passions so that they become heroic virtue, the path to holiness.

And so, He’s contrasting these, ultimately, these two existential choices to be configured with Him, Christ Himself, or to be worldlings, to be thoughtless, or to discern the will of God. This discernment of the will of God is to take apart mentally. It’s a fascinating verb. It means to… to comprehend means to take apart mentally and reconstruct in our own heads. What does that mean? It means we interiorize what Christ has laid out for us, the Law of God, for ourselves. In other words, it’s not something foreign to me, it’s not something external to me, it’s not mechanical fulfillment. It’s something I’ve interiorized. I’ve allowed entry into my mind and my heart. I’ve made my own through His help, and then it’s a cooperation, it’s a relationship. So, rather than fulfillment of some external obligation, this becomes a very intimate relationship, and it’s our Lord who has more interest in our living of it than we do, but it won’t happen without our own cooperation and this is what Paul will say elsewhere putting on the mind of Christ.

To put on the mind of Christ, and we’ll always be tempted to throw the mind of Christ off. We will always be tempted to think like the world, and that’s not a problem. We get up again and we start over. Our putting on the mind of Christ is a beautiful challenge that Our Lord presents to us. And we’re not set up for failure. So how do we do this? How do we put on the mind of Christ? How do I think like Christ?

Well, it’s going to be more likely to happen, it’s going to be possible if I get to know Him. How do I get to know Him? Spending time with Him in Adoration, certainly. Getting to know Him in the Gospel. Meditating on Him in Scripture. And when we meditate on Him in Scripture, this isn’t trying to figure out Scripture. It’s not supposed to be an intellectual exercise. It’s supposed to be time spent with our beloved. Time spent with Him in peace and quiet, getting to know Him intimately, existentially, rather than some… rather than an intellectual exercise. 

And so, Paul has a certain urgency when he’s writing to these Ephesians. He says, Do not get drunk on wine that leads to the debauchery. Rather, be filled… And this filled is an interesting word as well because this filled means to be crammed, to be stuffed. There can’t be any… there’s no room for anything else. Be filled with the Spirit, expressing yourselves in psalms, hymns, and inspired psalms, singing and praising the Lord with all your heart. What is he talking about there? He’s not talking about affected speech. He’s talking about the result of knowing Christ, the result of putting on the mind of Christ, that when that happens, He starts to inform the way we express ourselves, how we see people, how we express ourselves, how we speak, how we think is going to be directed by Him, by Our Lord Himself.

The Sermon at Capernaum,
Vasily Alexandrovich Kotarbiński, 19th c.

And so, summing up then, to put on the mind of Christ means I have to be in a state of grace, I have to get to know Christ in the Scripture, spend time with Him, and be vigilant, and make use of my time. For making use of my time, something I find helpful is making a schedule. And in that schedule, writing out when I’m going to have time for Adoration, when I’m going to have time for mental prayer, when I’m going to have time for devotion, when I’m going to have time for study, when I’m when it’s time for recreation, time for work, et cetera. When there’s a schedule, I find a lot more gets done. And then we take care of that, which matters most. Rather than following our passions and doing our best to try and get everything done, I find when we’ve got it written out, we have a better chance of taking care of those things that are essential to our vocations to being configured with Christ.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, the Holy Ghost. Amen. 

— Fr. Ermatinger