PREACHING BY REGINALD
MARTIN, OP
Homily for the Provincial Chapter January 9, 2003
The day before yesterday Joseph Sergott got my attention - and not altogether
pleasantly - by telling me that he expected a perfect homily this morning. The dictionary
defines the adjective "perfect" as "complete," "deficient in no
particular," or "free from flaw," a reminder that the quest for the perfect
homily is challenging indeed.
So you may imagine my delight when I read that the word "perfect," according
to the dictionary, is "often used as a near approach to such a state, and therefore
capable of comparison." For 600 years, until the middle of the 19th Century, authors
wrote of things as "perfecter" or even "perfectest."
But that's only a technicality. What gives hope to imperfect creatures - imperfect
homilists among them - is that the dictionary also reminds us that the word
"perfect" can also be used as a verb, so "to perfect" means "to
bring to perfection," or "to improve." Which gives us another adjective,
"perfectible," which means "capable of being brought to perfection."
And this, it seems to me, is not only consolation for imperfect homilists, but the
perfectest word for this Christmas season, with its comforting message that in the
Incarnation the finite has assumed infinite value from the perfector clothing himself in
our imperfection.
Anyone in this chapel who has reached a certain age - which is to say anyone who is at
least as old as Daniel Syverstad or Michael Sweeney - will recognize in the opening
sentence of this morning's first reading the essence of Paul Conner's class in charity:
"we love God because he first loved us." The action of love begins with The
Perfectest and perfects the perfectible, teaching us first to love God and then to love
God's creation. Like any of the virtues, love practiced becomes love perfect - or at least
love perfect-er - until, at last, we love the world, ourselves, and one another with our
perfectest God's perfect love.
In singing, we are told, we discover the perfectest use of our voices, and I suspect
dance reveals the perfection of our power of motion. It should come as no surprise, then,
that in love we find the perfection of those emotions which, Emmerich reminded us
yesterday, are neither good nor bad until the will transforms them into action. Yesterday
St. John told us that love casts out fear, and today he warns us that love is equally
incompatible with its opposite, hatred. No one can say, "I love God" but hate
his brother, because love doesn't work that way - it is a force to perfect the perfectible
human will.
The other morning St. Hippolytus reminded us "one who is loved generates
love," and likewise the one being perfected generates perfection. Thus, John can
remind us this morning, "…everyone who loves the Father loves also the one
begotten by him - and not just the Son, but all of creation, and especially those
residents of it made imperfect by sin that Jesus identifies in today's gospel: the poor,
captives, and the oppressed.
In today's section of Luke's gospel account Jesus is traveling through the territory
that was the first to fall to Israel's enemies, the area first to be rendered poor,
captive, and oppressed. It is very fitting that the land first to be made imperfect by
hatred and greed should be the first to be perfected by the perfector's word of love. And
this is our enduring task as Dominicans - to perfect the perfectible by preaching God's
love.
When Jesus says, "today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing, " our
lectionary says, "all spoke highly of him and were amazed at the gracious words that
came from his mouth." But another translation says, "they all agreed with
this," which shows how contagious perfection can be. Not that we're called to be
agreeable - the lives of the saints remind us that being perfect often has very little to
do with being nice - but because the perfection of love commands assent and unanimity.
If this were the perfect homily our brother Joseph ordered for this morning, it would
draw to a close with a clear, identifiable and measurable goal - something to inspire
action in those of us gathered for our Chapter, and something to inspire admiration and
awe in everyone else for the nobility of the task that gathers us here. Drawing a homily
to an end, though - like so much else in life - is where the manifold imperfection of the
merely perfectible often makes itself most manifest. It's what Kevin Wall called the
"myth/history conflict."
But the message of this Christmas season is that the Incarnation casts out fear and
perfects the imperfect, so by way of an ending let me reflect that when I was a novice I
read a book that said that although a religious' quest for perfection may properly be
described as an adornment of the Christian life, the religious life is not an external
decoration, but rather an essential part of the fabric of Christianity.
We might say the same, I think, of our Chapter. What draws us here is an
intensification of our everyday life as Dominicans, but it is in no way divorced from it
or external to it. We have come here to renew, to restore, and to perfect that small
corner of perfectible creation called the Western Dominican Province that God has
entrusted to us.
This Chapter is a solemn event and a noble undertaking. But remember what St.
Hippolytus said, "the one who is loved generates love." No one can say he loves
the invisible God while hating his visible brother, and neither can any of us presume to
perfect the perfectible until we are willing to allow God's love to perfect our
imperfections and call us to unanimity, assent, and reconciliation.
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