Making Choices

Homily for Saturday of the Fourth Week in Ordinary Time

Each and every day of our lives, we are asked to make choices. In the readings for today’s liturgy and in the saint whom we memorialize on this fifth day of February, we are given some good examples of people who chose wisely.

The story of Solomon is used generously in the lectionary, both in the lectionary for weekday Mass as well as the lectionary for Sunday Mass. So I doubt that it is a new story for us. We have probably heard it many times. Yet it still tends to fascinate us in that it portrays a very young man who could have chosen so many things rather than asking God to bless him with the gift of wisdom. This story and those that follow make Solomon the corporate figure of Wisdom throughout the Scriptures. The Book of Wisdom actually uses his voice even though it was written hundreds of years after his reign as king of Israel.

The Gospel features Jesus and his disciples also making a choice. It is clear at the outset that it was Jesus’ preference to draw apart from the crowd so that he would have the opportunity to spend some time with the disciples who have recently returned from their missionary journey. They were anxious to tell Jesus their stories, how they had expelled demons and cured the sick. Yet when they arrive at their intended quiet place, they are forced to choose between quiet time for themselves or the needs of the crowd that has followed them into the deserted place.

We celebrate the virgin martyr, Agatha of Sicily on this day. She is one of the seven virgin martyrs remembered in the Roman canon or Eucharistic Prayer. Agatha could have escaped torture and her eventual death. In fact, when she learned that she had been denounced as a Christian, she retired to a hidden life where she taught children about God. However, her hiding place was discovered and she was arrested. She was given a choice. Either marry the man who had denounced her or submit to various horrible tortures. She was taken to a brothel where it was thought that she would be used to gratify the carnal pleasures of men. However, she was protected by an angel, whereupon she was taken to prison and horribly mutilated. Still she chose to remain faithful to her faith. She was sentenced to be burned at the stake, but an earthquake postponed that. She died in prison waiting for her execution and is considered a martyr because of all the torture she endured.

As we consider the choices we are asked to make in our lives, the examples set by Solomon, by Agatha, and by Jesus and his disciples stand as clear witness of the need to live our lives for others rather than for ourselves.