Creating Deep Roots of Holiness - Weekday Homily Video

Today the Church gives us a saint tailor-made for this Gospel. Philip Neri, who was once the designated heir to a prosperous merchant empire in 16th-century San Germano, Italy. His uncle Romolo was wealthy, childless, and besotted with his young nephew. The boy had intelligence, charm, and business acumen. The inheritance was basically his to collect. All Philip had to do was show up and wait.  

But he left. Walked to Rome with nothing in his pockets and God on his mind, never looked back, and spent the rest of his eighty years evangelizing the streets of Rome one hilarious conversation at a time, shaving only half his beard to humble himself when people praised his holiness. He even ordered a priest who gave one beautiful sermon to preach the same sermon six consecutive times so people would think he only had the one. Philip Neri gave up a fortune and got Rome. That, is a hundredfold by any reasonable calculation.

What Do We Get?

Now Peter would have understood Philip completely. We picture Peter as a simple fisherman, sandals, sea breeze, humble nets at dawn. But experts say Peter might have ran a kind of commercial fishing operation on the Sea of Galilee, probably in active partnership with James and John, who employed hired hands (Mark 1:20). He owned property in Capernaum. He had a wife, a mother-in-law, a going concern. Peter was not a man scraping by. Peter had assets. So, when Jesus watches a wealthy young man walk away sad, unable to part with his possessions, and the disciples are standing there recalculating, Peter does what Peter always does. He says the quiet part out loud. Loudly. "Look, we left everything and followed you. So, what do we get?"

Twelve words. Zero shame. And honestly, fair enough. The man left his business, his income, his security, and his mother-in-law, actually, he may have had mixed feelings about that last one.

What Jesus says next should have been carved above the door of every church ever built. He says: no one who has left anything, house, family, livelihood for the Gospel will fail to receive a hundredfold in this present life. Then, because Jesus is always honest in the footnotes, he adds: "along with persecutions."

A More Fulfilling Life

Last Wednesday, The New York Times carried a fascinating story about a man named Scott Vincent Borba who was ordained a Catholic priest in the Diocese of Fresno, California. He co-founded E.L.F. Beauty, a three-billion-dollar cosmetics company. He drove an Aston Martin, wore designer suits, owned a mansion in the Hollywood Hills, and moved among celebrities and glamour. One article described how, for the Golden Globe Awards in 2011, he even gave actress Mila Kunis a $7,000 facial using crushed rubies and diamonds. Actual rubies and diamonds. On an actual face. Now if some of us heard that price for a facial, we would immediately go home, look in the mirror, and say, “Lord, I see that it your desire that my face will remain in its natural sinful condition.”

Then one night at a party in his Hollywood Hills mansion he had a mystical encounter, He asked himself: “Is this all life is? Making money, partying, acquiring things, and then dying one day?” That night changed his life. He walked away from it all and showed up to his first meeting with a vocation's director wearing a Hugo Boss suit and driving a Mercedes, ready to pitch his way into the priesthood. The vocation director looked at him and said: "Oh my gosh, we have so much work to do on you."

Receiving From God

Three men, centuries apart. The same story. The inheritance on the table. The mystical nudge. The inexplicable walk away. And then, and this is what the Gospel refuses to let us skip past, the return. Not in kind, but in abundance. Peter got the Church. Philip Neri got Rome. Scott Borba said last Saturday after his ordination to priesthood that in all his monetary success, he has never been as happy as he is now.

Jesus is not asking us to be miserable. He is asking us to stop mistaking the map for the destination. The Aston Martin, the fishing empire, the merchant fortune in San Germano, these are not evil things. They are simply not the thing. And the moment you stop clutching the thing that isn't the thing, your hands are finally free to receive what is.

Philip Neri had a saying he repeated constantly, pressing his finger to his forehead: "Holiness is three fingers deep." Meaning it goes no further than the surface if we let vanity rule us, and as deep as the soul if we let love rule us instead.

The question Jesus puts back to us today in the manner of a saint who shaved only half his beard is simply this: What are you still holding onto?

• Today’s Readings
  
  
• Father Boby’s inspirational homily was recorded live during Mass at the Father Peyton Center today. You can watch the entire Mass on the Family Rosary Video streams channel on YouTube.
  
  
• Join the Rosary (11:30 am ET) and Mass (Noon ET) livestreams on the Family Rosary YouTube or Facebook page, Monday – Friday. Invite your friends and family to pray with you as well.