“HE’S JUST A MAN”

Homily for 31 July 2020, Friday 17th Week in Ordinary Time, Feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola, Jer 26:1-9, Mat 13:54-58

Today we celebrate the memorial of Saint Ignatius of Loyola. He is the founder of the Society of Jesus—better known as the JESUITS. The word Society makes this religious group sound so formal. I think the Spanish Compañia de Jesus comes closer to how Ignatius really wanted his members to imagine themselves: compañeros de Jesus, “Companions of Jesus.” I owe my whole major seminary formation to these men—four years of philosophy, and five years of theology at San Jose Seminary from 1974 to 1983.

I remember asking my spiritual director, Fr. Hernando Maceda, SJ back in the 70’s how come St. Ignatius preferred to call them the Compania de Jesus rather than Compania de Cristo. He looked up at the ceiling and then back at me and said, “Hmm, give me until tonight to answer your question.”

It must have been past 11pm already when I heard some footsteps in the corridor that stopped right in front of my room. My lights were off as I had gone to bed already but was still alert enough to hear that he had slid a piece of paper under my door. After about five minutes, I turned on the desk lamp on the table next to my bed, got up and picked up the note. It was from Fr. Maceda. Written on the note was the following message: “When we proclaim Jesus as Christ, we also proclaim his divinity. I suspect that St. Ignatius wanted us to discover the divinity of Christ only by getting to know the humanity of Jesus up close.”

When I saw him the following day, he gave me a copy of the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius and asked me to go through the Second Week which invites the retreatant to a contemplation on Jesus in the Gospels. I remember he called my attention particularly to the rejection of Jesus in Nazareth, which happens to be our Gospel reading today.

He said there were people who could not accept the Christ in Jesus, people who could not take his humanity as the very revelation of his divinity. They saw it as a sort of obstacle because they only equate humanity with Adam, with sin and failure.

Around that time, the theater musical Jesus Christ Superstar happened to be very popular. And the favorite of our hippie generation among the songs in that movie was the song of Mary Magdalene: I DON’T KNOW HOW TO LOVE HIM. I know that the song can be taken as being very sexually suggestive, perhaps even a bit malicious about the feelings of Mary Magdalene towards Jesus.

Since I have outgrown the hippie culture of my generation, I tried going back to the song and realized that the malice is more in the listener.

It says, “I don’t know how to take this, I don’t see why he moves me, HE’S A MAN, HE’S JUST A MAN. And I’ve had so many men before in very many ways, he’s just one more.”

If we go back now to the Gospel, you will realize that what Magdalene is singing in JC Superstar is exactly what the town mates of Jesus in Nazareth are actually saying when they react and say, “Where did he get such wisdom and special powers? Isn’t he the carpenter’s son? Don’t we know his mother and the rest of his family?” What they mean is, “He’s a man; he’s just a man.” The Gospel adds, “And they took offense at him.”

In the first reading we hear of a similar situation: the leaders of Judah take offense at the words of Jeremiah. Somehow they know that it is God talking through him; but it is his mere humanity they cannot take.

We all have that tendency ourselves, such as when we make our humanity into an excuse of our sins and failure and say, “I’m only human.” In Tagalog, “Sapagkat kami’y tao lamang.” As if being human was innately so bad.

Jesus is now our template for a new humanity. We no longer equate humanity with the sinfulness of Adam, but with the grace of the Incarnate God who became like us in all things but sin.

He is the reason why we must never give up faith in humanity or despair about our frailties. St. Paul himself, who is often beset by his own weaknesses, one time lamented, “Miserable one that I am! Who will deliver me from my wretched self?“ Then he declares in full confidence, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. “ Therefore he says, in the verse that follows, (Rom 8:1) “Hence, now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”