Not too long ago, I saw a movie entitled The Boys in the Boat. If you haven’t seen it, do it! Based on a true story, it’s a great movie about a rowing team in the early 20th century. I’ll probably talk about the story from that movie in a future homily, but this Sunday I just have the sport of rowing on my mind. That movie got me a bit interested in rowing and I plan to watch some of the rowing competitions in the upcoming Olympics.
Rowing, like so many team sports, relies heavily on teamwork. Knowing how to be part of a team is such an important skill in life. It’s something that we are all called to as we follow the path the Lord traces for each of us in our lives. As St. John Paul II once famously said: “As the family goes, so goes the nation, and so goes the whole world in which we live.” Each of our families is designed by God to be a team which works together to build each other up in faith and then goes out to share that faith with the world. In fact, each parish is simply a family of families. So as our families go, so goes our parish, our community, our nation and this world. Just as Jesus sent out the Apostles in today’s Gospel with authority over unclean spirits, so the Lord wants to send all of us out into the world with the power of His authority into those dark places to bring the goodness of the light of Christ. The beauty of being part of a family and a parish family is that through these families God gives us everything we need to succeed in this mission. He didn’t send the Apostles alone and He never sends us alone.
So think for a second about a rowing team taking their boat down the river. They all need to work together in order to make it to the finish line. Look around you. Maybe you are here with your family, maybe you are here by yourself but as part of our parish family. But around you are those fellow rowers in the boat. When God puts us in a specific parish and a specific family, he does so in order to send us on mission together.
The thing that we have to be very aware of is that as we go on mission, there are enemies out there. As St. Paul reminds us in Ephesians 6:12: “For our struggle is not with flesh and blood but with the principalities, with the powers, with the world rulers of this present darkness, with the evil spirits in the heavens.” The mission we go on is a dangerous one because we go in the midst of the devil and all his fallen angels, whose only goal is to destroy us from within. I want to examine several of the tactics the enemy might use to thwart us in our mission and then talk about how we can counteract those tactics. The more we have our eyes open to the tactics of our enemy, the more we can work together to let God win the victory for us so that we can get to our destination.
So let’s talk briefly about four tactics of the enemy: division, distraction, distrust, and despair.
First, there is division. The devil likes nothing more than pitting us against one another. Think about being in that rowboat and looking across and seeing someone who isn’t your favorite person in the world. Maybe it’s a sibling, a relative, or a fellow parishioner. There are things about this person that just drive you bonkers. It is difficult for you to even be around them. Wouldn’t it be tempting, since you’re in the boat together, to start rowing in the opposite direction than they are, just to mess with them? When we give into that spirit of division, which comes from the evil one, it makes us stuck because we’re all pulling in different directions. The boat isn’t going to move when we act this way.
A great antidote to division is humility. Humility is a beautiful virtue because it allows us to recognize our own shortcomings and weaknesses and in light of those, to be patient with the weaknesses of others. Take St. Therese of Lisieux, for example. She was often extremely annoyed at the mannerisms and habits of her fellow religious sisters, but she chose to deal with them in love and to serve them because she knew that God had put her with those women for a reason. Humility gets us out of our own way so that we can focus on the core, most important things together–loving God and loving neighbor as ourselves–and not get so caught up in our differences and our hang ups about each other. Holy Spirit, give each of our families and our parish family an abundance of humility!
Next, the enemy hits us with distraction. This is such an easy one in the frantically busy world we live in. Doesn’t it seem like most people today are very busy, but have trouble getting much accomplished? This is a powerful and sometimes subtle tool of the devil. If he can just get one of the people on the boat to be distracted by something happening along the shore, it throws off the entire rest of the team. Unless the team is focused, they can’t possibly work well together. So it is with each of us. The Holy Spirit wants to accomplish important things through us, but how often are we so distracted by sports, hobbies, social media and entertainment that we become “too busy” for the things of God?
One of the best ways to combat distraction is with intentional silence in our lives. As some of you heard in my pilgrimage presentation last weekend, there was a person who would come over the public address system at the grotto at Lourdes when the crowd got too noisy, and just went: “SHHHHH.” It was extremely effective. It reminded all of us why we were there–not just to see this amazing place or chatter with the people around us, but to have silent, open hearts to the Lord and what He wanted to give us. Let’s all take those moments throughout our days to allow the Lord to say: “SHHHHH.” When we do this, we combat all the noisy distractions that pull us away from the mission God has for us. When we become silent, we become attentive to the voice of the Holy Spirit within, directing us like the cocksand perched at the front of the rowboat with a little megaphone who keeps everyone on task. Come Holy Spirit, give us quiet hearts to listen to your direction.
The devil also hits us with the tactic of distrust. This is an especially tricky one because it’s one of the more hidden tactics. Nobody can see into the depths of our hearts, but it is there that we sometimes hold back from trusting those brothers and sisters with whom the Lord has sent us on mission. Think about the Apostles. They were all very different men, but they had to learn to trust each other and to trust in the provision of the Lord. Jesus sent them out without food, sack or money in their belts to force them to seek the Lord together and trust Him to provide for their joint mission. There were certainly temptations for them to distrust each other and I’m sure they had their moments. For each of us, there can be that creeping temptation to not be open and vulnerable with priests, church leaders, and other brothers and sisters. This keeps us from giving our all to the mission. To return to the analogy of the boat, if one rower doesn’t trust the others, he might hold the team back by not truly putting in his strongest effort.
It can be hard for us to trust sometimes because the church is made up of fallen human beings. We all are going to fail each other now and again. That distrust keeps us from giving our all with others and builds spiritual walls between us. The great news is that we have a potent antidote for the distrust that can tempt us when our brothers and sisters in mission let us down. That antidote is mercy. Mercy means extending love and forgiveness when we are suffering because of another’s failing. God invites us to extend love to those who have failed our trust, to try again to rebuild with that person so that we can work together to bring God’s love and light to others. Mercy helps us to rebuild trust when it breaks down on occasion. Extending mercy doesn’t mean we always have to remain with people who break trust with us. Love and forgiveness don’t necessarily need to lead to reunion. Jesus instructed his Apostles: “Whatever place does not welcome you or listen to you, leave there and shake the dust off your feet
in testimony against them.” We are called to put our trust in God above all, and to do our best to build trust with those with whom He sends us on mission. Come Holy Spirit, help us to trust our brothers and sisters in mission and be merciful to them when they fail.
Finally, I want to talk about the devil’s strategy of despair. If someone on the boat stops rowing, it makes everyone else’s job more difficult. Despair is an ever present temptation because we often fail to live up to that mission to which God has entrusted us. When we fail, we are tempted to remain down in the dumps, to throw down our oars and stop rowing because we made a wrong move and now feel useless. But this is just what the enemy wants! He wants us to believe the lie that we are defined by our worst moments. But that isn’t the truth. Don’t listen to the lies of the enemy, brothers and sisters! God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us. Jesus is bigger than our failings and knows how to continue spreading His light even in spite of those moments where we fail.
When you are in that moment of despair, don’t stay there. Run to the Healer in Confession. Allow the Lord to wrap you in His merciful embrace and to fill you with His grace, like the father who put the robe and ring on his prodigal son. There is no sin too big for the Lord to forgive, and not even our sin stops the working of His mission. He wants to put you right back to work when you allow Him to forgive you. Don’t stay away from the family because you feel unworthy due to your sin. Jesus’ grace fills you to equip you once again. Imagine if great saints like Augustine or Paul had given into despair because of their past sins. God has great things in the future for you too, in spite of the ways you’ve fallen in the past! Let Him pick you up and send you forward. Come Holy Spirit, give us hearts that yearn for reconciliation so we can be strengthened for our mission.
I pray that all of us work together in our families and in this parish family so that, like the Apostles, we can go forth in the power of Christ to bring the light of His love to those in darkness!
+ Heavenly Father, thank you for sending us on mission together. Jesus, give us the grace to work well together in our mission and to combat the tactics of the enemy. Holy Spirit, open our hearts to be more humble, silent, merciful and repentant so that we can shine Jesus’ light more brightly. We ask this through Christ, our Lord. Amen. +