The Anawim

This is a computer-generated transcription that has been included to make the homily searchable.  It has not been verified by the author. 

“Today, this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”  The gospel today is at a key moment of Jesus ministry. He’s just begun His ministry, His public ministry, and He’s coming back to Nazareth for the first time and enters the synagogue. And so the people there wondering what’s going on, because they’ve known Jesus for many years, and suddenly everything’s changing, and He’s preaching and working miracles. So what’s going on? And so when it comes to the synagogue, then they hand them a scroll to read from. And so He’s not choosing a scroll, but we know the providence of God is choosing the passage. And so what is the passage? So Jesus has just said, “Today, this passage is fulfilled in your hearing.” So what was that passage? What is the passage that God is giving here at the very beginning of the gospel to explain what Jesus is doing, what’s happening? Because I imagine that’s what a lot of people, they were wondering, what’s going on? What are you doing? Why are you doing this? Where does this come from? This change in you. And so what is the passage? It’s a passage from Isaiah that we just heard. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.” So it’s the Holy Spirit, He’s saying is acting, “is acting in Me and through Me has anointed him for this.” So this was the prophecy of Isaiah many centuries ago. But Jesus is saying that that prophecy from many centuries ago is about what is happening right now as they’re listening. He says it’s upon Me, and so what is He to do? What? What is the spirit causing him to do? He says, “He has anointed Me to preach good news.” That’s where we get the word for gospel, to preach good news, to preach the gospel. And he goes on to say, “He has sent Me to proclaim, release the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, and to set liberty, liberate those who are oppressed.” So captives, the blind, the oppressed, but I skipped the passage because it says, “the Spirit has anointed me to preach good news to… “who? Who is he called to preach good news to? And that the gospel translation we have here says, “to the poor.” Isaiah, writing in Hebrew language, used the word, a Hebrew word, anawim, anawim, to preach good news to the anawim. So who are the anawim that Jesus is, by the Holy Spirit, called to preach to, to bring the good news to? Well, one Bible Dictionary defines anawim as “the poor, the lowly, the humble, the meek, the afflicted, who thus depend on God and put their trust in Him.” Saint John Paul, one time when he was commenting the Psalm 149 said this. He says, because that Psalm, as many Psalms, he says, use that word, anawim. He says “the anawim.” He says, “the poor and lowly ones,” the poor and lowly ones, He says “that it indicates the oppressed, the miserable, the persecuted for justice.” And he says also “those because of their fidelity to God, are marginalized by those who use violence and riches and power.” And he says that “it’s not just a social category, but it’s above all, a spiritual choice,” a spiritual choice. And he refers to the beatitude, “Blessed are the poor in spirit. For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” And then he goes on to cite a passage from Saint Paul to Corinthians. And I’ll cite a little bit more than he had. St Paul says, “Consider your call, brethren,” consider your call. “Look among yourselves. He says “not many of you were wise according to the flesh, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world, to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not to bring to nothing, things that are.” This reminds me of a passage of something that when I was in France many years ago, during my formation, I spent about a year in a community for hermits. That’s actually where the story of the forest fire that I’ve talked about happened. So I was there and there was a Benedictine monk. It had been at a famous Benedictine monastery for many years, and then he had permission to start this new community of hermits. And he said that when he was starting this community, he had had a special dream, and because, and he had in this dream, the Lord presented him all these candidates for his new community, men and women. And the Lord said, choose, choose the candidates you want. And well, Lord, who am I? And the Lord said, “No, go ahead, choose. You’re starting a new community. Choose them.” And so he looks, and he notices, (gives us a number of people He notices,) some really excellent candidates. And so he goes carefully through this group and chooses the ones you can see are the ones he needs for this new community, the best candidates. And when he finished, the Lord said, “Are there anymore?” He says, “No, thank you. Lord, this is more than I could have expected. This is fantastic. Thank you.” The Lord says, “You’re finished, then?” “Yes, Lord, thank You.” The Lord says, “Okay, well, then I choose the others.” And that was a real wake up call for him, that he was choosing in a very human way, and God’s choice was very different. And that’s what St Paul is showing here. You know, so many, a lot of organizations, even Catholic organizations, feel to be most effective, they need to go after the leaders, the influential, powerful people. And St Paul says, “God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong, what is foolish to shame the wise, what is low and despised, even that which is not to bring to nothing things that are.” And so how different God’s choice is from man’s ways. And so the unaware maybe that we don’t have any one word which that’s the reason I’m using this word, because we don’t have any one word which can express all the different meanings, but maybe the word that best expresses it is the humble, the humble faithful ones who trust in the Lord. And the gospel of Jesus clearly gives them a privileged place. We see it right with this very gospel that we’re reading today. At the beginning of his gospel, he’s called to preach the Good News to the anawim. In the whole – all the spirit of the Beatitudes, the poor in spirit and so forth. “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” And all the Beatitudes expressed, you know, the Beatitudes, which some say is the great charter of the gospel, is expressing the spirit of the anawim. And that phrase we hear so often in the Gospel, “the last,” those who are last in the world with the those are the anawim, and Jesus says, “they will be first.” And the Catechism says, “the kingdom of God belongs to the poor and lowly, which means those who have accepted it with humble hearts.” So the kingdom belongs to those who accept it with humble hearts. And St John Paul, in that passage I was sharing, he says, “after our Lord Himself the best example is our Blessed Mother.” And that’s the experience she expresses in her Magnificat, when she says, “God has regarded the lowliness of his handmaiden. He has shown strength with His arm. He has scattered the proud, and the thoughts of their hearts. He has put down the mighty from their thrones and has exalted the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things and the rich He has sent away empty.” So what I’m saying is none of that should be controversial. For a Catholic, that’s the traditional teaching of God’s special love for the anawim. But you know, here at the mission, we’re called to, we’re called to a special focus on the prophetic words that God is giving. And one thing, one of the great graces of prophetic words is how much they continue this message, this mission of Jesus to share the Good News of the Gospel with the anawim. Jesus preaches for everybody. He doesn’t exclude anybody. His gospel is open and calling everybody. So it doesn’t exclude anybody. It’s for everyone. But it has a special, a special focus for the anawim. And he says, in one point in the Gospel, Jesus rejoices. He’s showing a special joy. And what’s causing that joy? He says, “I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to the little ones.” You have hidden from the wise and understanding and revealed them to the little ones. And I’m thinking that it seems like a lot of universities, even Catholic universities and seminaries, should have on their entry. We give you thanks, Lord, because you’ve revealed to the wise and the learned what you’ve hidden from the little ones. The opposite, that is, I was just yesterday, was the Feast of the conversion of St Paul, and I was thinking about Paul Saul of Tarsus, before his conversion, he was a Pharisee. Some of the Pharisees we know from the gospel are very evil, evil intentioned, but St Paul, well, Saul, he wasn’t yet St Paul, Saul was not bad intentioned, he was good intentioned. He had good intentions. He loved the tradition of the fathers. He revered the Word of God. So he had very good intentions. He was a very intelligent person, and he dedicated himself to studying what is most important, the word of God, and to trying to be very faithful to the traditions. And yet St Paul well, not St Paul – Saul, he wasn’t yet. St Paul – Saul was not able to recognize what all of them were waiting for. The most important thing, the Messiah. The Messiah came and he wasn’t able to recognize him. And it wasn’t just the Messiah, it was God himself, who was there. And it wasn’t just at the very beginning of his ministry. Saul was coming several years after Jesus death and resurrection. So his death had already taken place. His resurrection had already taken place. Becoming the Holy Spirit had already taken place. And he wasn’t far away. He later came to Jerusalem. So he was in Jerusalem just some years after this had all happened. And so there were a lot of eyewitnesses who had seen this, who were still living. With all those witnesses, he who had tried to focus on the most important thing. He missed the most important thing. And there were so many simple people, simple humble people, even pagans, 1000s of them, who were able to recognize that Jesus was the Messiah and the Son of God. And Paul, this intelligent, learned Saul was not. His studies had gotten in the way of what was most important. The reason I say that is because I think that it’s happening a lot today. There’s a lot of good Catholics who love the Catholic faith, who are studying the Catholic faith, who devote themselves to that. And yet, like Saul of Tarsus, they’re very studies, because the danger with studies is we become too confident in our own understanding. Saul was a good person, but he was too confident in his own understanding, so he had to be knocked to the ground and blinded to realize that he was persecuting God Himself, the one he thought he had dedicated his life to serving. But because he and others had been there, with pride that they understand the word of God had been distorted. And so his studies became an obstacle. And I think that’s happening a lot today. As I say, there’s a lot of good, faithful, learned Catholics, but because they’re too confident in their own understanding, can’t accept, can’t understand, can’t recognize what many humble people …. I was referencing, a guy who came. I forget what, I can’t remember, I was saying it. But a guy came several weeks ago. He calls himself a hobo. He’s living under a bridge in a different state, but he came across the messages, and he felt a strong call to come here to Texas. And it was, that was a very difficult thing for him to do, but he felt a call to do it, because he just sensed the Holy Spirit was speaking to him, and he had to do this. And so I think that’s a good example, the anawim, as Jesus just said, who are able to perceive what many wise and learned people, who aren’t bad people, who are good people, but that pride confuses things and makes them not able to see. (And my iPad just went to sleep while I was preaching. So there we go. Maybe it wasn’t just my iPad, maybe it was somebody who went to sleep. That’s what happens with my preaching, it puts people to sleep. So even my iPad.) And so what I wanted to focus on is the special relationship between the prophetic word and the anawim. We see it right now in the Gospel. Jesus Gospel is especially for the anawim. And we see this throughout all God’s word already, from the Old Testament. The prophets of the Old Testament have been courageous defenders of the poor and the oppressed. And this continues throughout the history of the Church. Many times it’s the anawim that God chooses as His messengers. Like Juan Diego for the great operation of Our Lady of Guadalupe, who was just an indigenous a commoner, who felt himself very unworthy of this very incapable and yet our Blessed Mother says, No, you’re the one. Because he said, choose somebody else, choose someone else who will be esteemed and respected and listened to. I’m just a normal, common person. I’m just a he says, I’m a tail, I’m a tail. You know St Paul was talking in the reading today about the body has different parts. And Juan Diego says I’m a tail.  So he says, I’m not the, I’m not and our Blessed Mother says, No, you’re the one who has to do this. And or St Bernadette of Lourdes, a very poor girl from Lourdes, 15-year-old. Or the children of Fatima, or the children of Garabandal or St Faustina also is very poor. And in our time in which teenagers are especially vulnerable to so much of the poison in our society, it’s striking. In a place like Kibeho, the apparitions of Kibeho and Juanda or Medjugorje, it was teenagers who were called to be the instruments of these messages. And so God often chooses the anawim to be His messengers. But it’s also for the anawim. One of the most clearest examples is at Lourdes, with all that the sick and suffering who receive graces there, and we’re talking a few weeks ago about Our Lady of Guadalupe, and how so many of the common people had very little hope at that time, and of anything and her apparition revealed that they were loved by God, that He was who was sending His mother to reveal to them that they were chosen by Him, loved and chosen. And one of the signs was of God choosing one of them, Juan Diego, and God speaking their language and giving them this beautiful image of Our Blessed Mother. And one of the great Graces of the gospel and of prophetic language, true prophetic language, is it’s so often a language of the heart, the heart in a profound Biblical sense, that is, it speaks to our hearts. It’s not a dry, abstract language with a lot of jargon and difficult concepts, but a simple language of love with a loving person, like in the gospel. We especially see that at the Last Supper in John’s gospel, the special chapters like 12 to 17, Jesus’ last time with His apostles, it’s such a simple loving language. And we see that so often in the prophetic messages, in that it’s a message of a love, of a personal God, speaking, speaking love. Like we see that like in Fatima, we see that in the messages of the Sacred Heart to St Margaret Mary, the Divine Mercy messages, where we see the rays coming from the heart of our Lord. For just, just to give an example, for instance, it’s very different to read a liturgical treatise about the sacraments, or to read Jesus Himself saying, as He did to Saint Faustina, He’s talking about the sacrament of reconciliation. He says, “I myself am waiting there for you in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, I am only hidden by the priest. I myself am waiting there for you.” That’s that simple language of love. Or when He says also to St Faustina, when He speaks of the pain He experiences when people receive Him unworthily in Holy Communion. So that’s a simple language of a relationship between persons. So it’s a language that speaks directly to our heart, a language that even children can appreciate, often better than adults. And so it’s a language to manifest. So manifest this love, and that’s also one of the great graces of prophetic manifestations, is that manifests God’s presence and His love. So it’s not just the words themselves, but it’s the very fact that God is speaking today. Because we often feel that God is far away. And we can wonder, many people wonder if He really exists, or can He really, is he really paying attention to us? Is He really present? And so when God acts, when God speaks, it’s a sign that He is present with us today, close to His people. Like and I think that was one of the graces of Our Lady of Guadalupe. It showed the missionaries were preaching about Jesus, but Jesus was someone who they were hearing about, who had lived far, far away in a land that they had never heard of many, many, many centuries ago. But when our Blessed Mother appears, it reveals that this God is not far away, that He is right there, He is not a God who is only to be found in a far away, strange land, 1000s of years ago, but He is right there with them now, and that’s what her image manifests. It manifests that God exists, that He’s close to us, that He cares about us, and that He can act in our world. And so today, when evil is so strong and there’s so much corruption in the Church, we need to know that God is present, that He is in control, He is with us and guiding us. The anawim, the greatest need of the anawim is their need for Jesus. That’s not the only need we need. We need food and so forth as material needs, but the greatest need is of Jesus. And a lot of what’s unfortunately coming from the Vatican and from many sources, we don’t sense the true voice of Jesus. Jesus who spoke the clear truth, calling a spade a spade, even when it was controversial, who was condemned by the powerful? So who spoke a truth that many couldn’t see because of the confusion. And that’s what’s happening today. Jesus speaking the truth in a world like this fog we have today. Jesus speaking the truth in a world of a lot of fog and confusion. And Jesus speaking the truth, the clear truth, but with love and mercy. And especially those who are suffering, these words can be such a; as many people have told us, these messages are such a balm to their souls, such a hope.  And I would say that who are responding to the messages, I mean our experience of those who, since we’ve released the messages we’ve lost, as we said, a lot of people, and it’s striking to me, a lot of the people that we’ve lost are people who have done a lot of studies. And who are responding to the messages? It’s especially people with simple, humble hearts, often people who are made simple and humble because of suffering. So it’s the anawim, what Jesus says, what is hidden from the wise and a learned. It’s revealed to the humble. I’m going to be doing a podcast soon, so that I’ll go more in depth, because I think this is a very key topic. But to conclude, “the Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach the Good News, the Gospel to the anawim.” And so let us ask our blessed mothers intercession that the Holy Spirit may form our hearts as anawim, humble hearts open to God’s words and actions today. God, who is continuing to announce today, the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ, in our world of fog and confusion, announcing His truth and His love and His mercy to the anawim. Amen. 

KEYWORDS / PHRASES:
Luke 1:1-4; 4:14-21
Nehemiah 8:2-4a, 5-6, 8-10
1Corinthians 12:12-30