Homily for the Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (C)

Brendan Marracco grew up in the Huguenot section of Staten Island not far from where I grew up and went to high school. His parents say that he was smart and outgoing but didn’t like school very much – he was always just a little too headstrong, they say. After graduating from high school, Brendan enlisted in the Army and completed basic training at Fort Benning, Georgia.

Not quite six months into his first combat tour in Iraq, on Easter Sunday morning 2008, Private First Class Marrocco sat behind the wheel of an armored vehicle, the last truck in a four-vehicle convoy on a routine escort mission. A machine gunner, Private Marrocco had become a driver just a few days before.

All he can recall of that drive back to base is the bright flash of light. “I hit a pressure wire,” that lay across the road, he says. The bomb shredded his armored vehicle. His best buddy, Specialist Michael Anaya, was killed. Another soldier was wounded; and Private Brendan Marrocco of Staten Island, NY became the first American combat troop to lose all four limbs and survive.

The surgeon who treated Brendan had to repair his carotid artery and replace eighty percent of his blood. “Any one of his injuries was life-threatening,” the doctor says. “It’s incredible. His life was saved, but I didn’t do it. He was meant to be saved.”

Today, Brendan Marracco can write, use a computer, work on a model car and use his phone to text message, even as he still awaits a double arm transplant. His physical therapists at Walter Reed say that “he has incredible balance and drive” and that he has mastered standing and walking a few steps more quickly than other amputee they’ve worked with.

Of course Brendan has good days and bad days – he gets tired easily, he can become cranky, and he’s often frustrated when people stare at him. But Brendan’s trainers say they “never catch him feeling sorry for himself – never hear him say, ‘I wish this had never happened.’ ” Brendan himself says, “I have no idea why I’m so happy.”

When I was home visiting my parents last week, I read a newspaper article about this incredible young man. It’s an amazing story of survival, resilience, determination, courage and strength. But, to be honest with you, none of this was what most captured my attention in the article.

What most impressed me was that Brendan believes his injuries are somehow part of God's plan. He believes that he has a mission now to "inspire people and touch lives.” In other words, I was most impressed, not by the things Brendan has been able to do for himself in recovery, but by the effect he is having on everyone around him.

First, there are the other wounded troops at Walter Reed, and the medical staff that work with Brendan. His caregivers watch TV with him long after their shifts have ended just to be around him, and the other troops look up to Brendan and are encouraged by the successes he’s had in recovery. He gives all of them both hope and perspective.

“It’s funny the complaining that goes on when Brendan’s not around,” one of his physical therapists says. “And then, when he’s there, everybody shuts up. It puts things in perspective for them. It puts things in perspective for me, too.”

Then there is Brendan’s brother, Michael. Always the more reserved and shy of the siblings, Michael was not a caregiver by nature. But not long after Brendan sustained his injuries, Michael left his job at Citigroup in Manhattan, left his friends, and his social life, and moved to Washington to live with and help his brother. “It needed to be done, and I was best prepared to do it,” Michael explains.

But perhaps Michael has been helped as much or more by Brendan than the other way around. “This tragedy has made Michael a better person,” their mother says. “He is more talkative, more interactive than he’s ever been, more forthcoming, and now he makes plans for himself and for the future, which” he never did before.

Because I was so struck by the positive effect Brendan’s suffering is having on others, I couldn’t help but think of this article when I read today’s second reading. St. Paul writes to the Colossians: “brothers and sisters I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of His body, which is the Church.”

This is a remarkable statement from St. Paul, and one that summarizes themes he develops in several of his letters, detailing the many trials he has endured in his missionary efforts.

But it’s also, at first, a puzzling statement. Why does Paul rejoice in suffering, and what could possibly be “lacking in the afflictions of Christ?” Is Paul saying that Christ’s sufferings are somehow deficient in worth or merit – that they are insufficient to redeem the sins of the entire world?

Of course not. What is lacking is that the infinite value of Christ’s cross is not known in the world. It is still a “mystery hidden from ages and from generations past,” as St. Paul says. And so God intends to reveal the mystery and power of Christ’s suffering through us, the members of Christ’s body, the Church, so that when we offer Christ to others they can actually see Christ in us!

St. Paul is trying to show us that when we suffer we participate in the saving act of redemption – not because Christ’s sacrifice was incomplete – but because Christ “has opened His own redemptive suffering to all human suffering.” Our suffering is not meaningless – it “brings to completion the word of God” – it is part of Christ’s cross, offering His hope and life to our brothers and sisters throughout the Church and the world.

I think that’s what Brendan Marracco is experiencing when he says he’s convinced that his injuries have a purpose in God’s plan, and that it’s to touch and inspire other people. I think that’s what those around him are experiencing: his fellow soldiers who now have new hope and determination for their own recoveries, and Brendan’s brother who now exhibits a greater openness to others and a deeper zest for life.

And I even dare to say that this is the answer to Brendan’s self-searching question: “I have no idea why I’m so happy.” He is echoing St. Paul, who says, “I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake!”

Of course suffering isn’t a good or pleasant thing. No, Brendan did not want to endure the injuries he suffered, any more than we want to suffer, or St. Paul wanted to suffer, or Christ in the Garden wanted to face the Cross.

And no, it’s not that we shouldn’t rage against the suffering we see in the world or not work diligently to alleviate as much pain and suffering as we can.

Rather, our Christian faith convinces us of a profoundly paradoxical, and yet fantastically optimistic and hope-filled truth: while we long for Christ’s return, when there will be no more suffering or death, we are not surprised to have a share in Christ’s cross, and we know that Christ is present with us in suffering.

Christ’s presence is the “better part” spoken of in today’s Gospel, and the “one thing,” the only thing, of which there is any need at all. So long as we have Christ – so long as we sit “at His feet listening to Him” – then even our suffering has meaning.

We can even be joyful in the knowledge that Christ gives our suffering a share in His power to save, and transform, and redeem, and give life. What greater “riches,” what greater “hope for glory” could there possibly be than “Christ in us,” “manifested to His holy ones” by the power of the Cross.