Homily, 6-3-24: Monday of the 9th Week in Ordinary Time:
In yesterday’s Office of the Readings for the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, there was an excerpt from a work by Thomas Aquinas. The excerpt began with these words: “Since it was the will of God’s only-begotten Son that men should share in his divinity, he assumed our nature in order that by becoming man he might make men gods.” It’s quite an intriguing statement. I used the quote once before in a Sunday homily and after Mass someone stopped me and had an issue with the concept, or maybe the way I presented it. Maybe I needed to say that the word “gods” is lower case. We will not be God, but we will share in His divinity.
St. Peter reminds us of this promise in our first reading this morning: “Through these, he has bestowed on us the precious and very great promises, so that through them you may come to share in the divine nature, after escaping from the corruption that is in the world because of evil desire.” Sharing in Christ’s divinity is a wonderful promise, but first we must successfully escape the corruption of this world. And St. Peter, as fitting of the first leader of the Church, gives us some instruction on how to go about escaping this world and winning the precious promise. We heard: “make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, virtue with knowledge, knowledge with self-control, self-control with endurance, endurance with devotion, devotion with mutual affection, mutual affection with love.”
It is an outline for spiritual growth for us to follow; an outline that begins with faith and ends with love. We humbly accept the gift of faith and pray that it be strengthened, and then it is up to us to take the next steps, to have self-control, to endure in times of testing. In the next two verses after our reading St. Peter writes: “If these are yours and increase in abundance, they will keep you from being idle or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Anyone who lacks them is blind and shortsighted, forgetful of the cleansing of his past sins.”
And so it is important not to be idle in our spiritual growth, lest we become blind and short sighted. We need to acknowledge our own shortcomings and sinfulness, and that we are cleansed of those sins because Jesus willingly shared our humanity. We need to strive to grow in love so that we can successfully escape the corruption of this world and win the promise of sharing in His divinity.