Homily: God Alone is Enough

Year B / Ordinary Time / Memorial of St Teresa of Avila

Readings: Romans 3.21-30a / Psalm 129.1-2, 3-4, 5-7a (R/v 7) / Luke 11.47-54

Have you ever assured someone, “It will be fine; God is with you”, trusting as you said this that God alone is enough to console, to affirm and to uplift her?

God alone is enough is the concluding line of a prayer St Teresa of Avila once wrote and prayed. Many of us know this prayer:

Let nothing disturb you,
nothing surprise you,
all things pass:
God does not change.
Patience wins everything;
whoever holds onto God
lacks nothing;
God alone is enough.

What gives St Teresa and us that quiet confidence to declare in prayer for ourselves or in care of others this truth that God alone is enough?

I’d like to suggest that we can find an answer to this question in the refrain from our responsorial psalm today: “With the Lord there is mercy, and fullness of redemption”. You and me, and St Teresa too, have all experienced the Lord’s mercy, and, more so, the fullness of God’s redemption in our lives, not once but repeatedly. 

We know this experience to be true and real because as unbelievable as it may seem to many, we have encountered the God of mercy we believe in very palpable ways. When a friend receives a friendly Facebook like for his kind act, would he not sense God affirming his goodness? When a child feels her father’s encouraging pat on her back after failing a Maths test, would she not think of God’s care too? And when spouses forgive each other, would they not believe even more in the fullness of God’s forgiveness and compassion?

What about us, Lasalle brothers and Jesuit priest, who teach and lead in our Lasallian schools? We work hard to show our students the love of God in the faith we share, in the service we give and in the community we are as a school daily. What empowers us to do this? I'd like to suggest this: nothing less than our own own encounters with a God who loves us as we are, sinners, yet finds us—no matter how incomprehensible it is to our rational minds—always worthy to be God’s beloved. And not just good enough to be loved, but very good in fact to continue the good work God began with St John Baptist de la Salle. 

I suspect it is because we have each experienced God’s mercy in our brokenness only to be redeemed again and again to live more fully in God's ways that we want our students and teachers to experience this same love of God. Isn’t this why we strive so hard and so long to give so much of ourselves to touch our students’ hearts, to engage their minds and to transform their lives?

Yes, to those who have received much, much will be asked of them to work with Jesus to bring about God’s kingdom. We have received much. And we can still give more in our teaching and leading because God alone is indeed enough reason, strength and hope for us to do so.

Preached at the Lasalle Brothers’ House, SJI, Malcolm Road

Photo: sunset in harvard square by adrian danker, sj (boston, june 2015)