A Homily for the Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Readings: 1 Kings 3:5, 7-12  Romans 8:28-30  Matthew 13:44-52

Did you ever date an immortal? Odysseus does in the “Odyssey.” 

He and Kalypso (Καλυψώ), a beautiful sea nymph and minor goddess, are an item for seven years after the Ithacan hero washes up on her island. (I prefer how closely Daniel Mendelsohn’s 2025 translation of the “Odyssey” hews to the Greek original, in content and in meter.) 

Kalypso’s kingdom is “bursting with clusters of grapes.”

Four springs, all in a row, flowed with the clearest water,
Their streams running side by side, then turning this way and that.
All around there were velvety meadows where violets and bay-grass were growing 
Lushly. There, even a god who chanced upon this scene
Would marvel at the sight, pleasure filling his mind (V. 69-75). 

Kalypso nurses the castaway back to health, falls in love with him and then keeps him her prisoner in paradise.

Of course, Odysseus is already married to Penelope, back in Ithaca. Twenty years earlier, as he set off to fight in the Trojan War, Odysseus had bidden farewell to her and his infant son Telemachus. 

Kalypso has it bad for Odysseus. She is “burning to make him her husband” (I.15). She even offers him eternal life. Odysseus can remain on the island, “immortal and ageless through all his days,” forever wed to a goddess who also cannot grow old (V.136). Hard offer to turn down!

But the “Odyssey” still speaks to us because it shows us to ourselves, whether that be the best in us or the worst. 

Even in paradise, Odysseus longs to return to his mortal life at home.

During the day he would sit on the rocks by the edge of the sea
Weeping and moaning and tearing his heart to shreds in despair.
The tears pouring down as he stared at the restless wastes of sea (V.156-58).

In their 20 years of separation, Penelope must be equally marked by time and suffering. Yet Odysseus chooses mortal life with his wife over the offer of an eternal one with Kalypso. If the gods allow it, he will grow old and die in her company. 

He tells the goddess,
Divine lady, do not be angry with me, for I myself know
Very well how feeble Penelope, that clear-thinking woman, would seem
If someone were to compare her beauty or stature with yours.
She, after all, is a mortal, while you are immortal and ageless.
But not a day goes by for me when I am not wishing and long
To be homeward bound and to see the days of my return (V.215-220).

We still read the “Odyssey”—or at least thrill to its telling on the big screen—because it summons us to choose wisely, to embrace the life that God in his wisdom has granted to us, striving to better it rather than to dwell in fantasy.

Solomon is made an offer not unlike the one proffered to Odysseus. 

The LORD appeared to Solomon in a dream at night. 
God said, “Ask something of me and I will give it to you” (1 Kgs 3:5).

And like Odysseus, the great king chooses the real over the fantastical, what endures over what passes. He asks only for “an understanding heart to judge your people and to distinguish right from wrong” (1 Kgs 3:9).

Jesus asks us to find our treasure and to choose accordingly. The world is full of good things, but we cannot have them all. So often, when we grasp for more, what little we have falls from our hands. Can we abide in our blessings, trusting in the God who bestowed them upon us? 

The world grows ever more bewitched. Like Kalypso’s island, a place of wanton fantasy. Selecting what is solid has never been harder. 

How aptly it was named “the World Wide Web.” Everything can be found therein, but you can also lose yourself, become entangled in illusions. Writing in the April issue of The Atlantic, McCay Coppins reported that nearly half of American men, age 18 to 49, report having online betting accounts. Three years ago, Time Magazine noted that “more than half of Gen Z social media users feel more comfortable being vulnerable online and over text than in person.” Back in 2017, The New Yorker reported on Silicon Valley executives, determined to make death itself optional. And who needs research to ask: How many people stare at smartphones and fail to see faces? 

When we grasp for more, what little we have falls from our hands. Of course, I would not be preaching the Gospel if I failed to point out the difference between the wisdom of the “Odyssey” and the proclamation of the Good News. 

St. Thomas Aquinas spoke of humans as quoddam modo omnia. We are those who in one way or another desire all good things. That’s how God created us. We simply are “open hearts ready to receive.” 

St. Augustine warned us to choose wisely, however. He reminded us that our hearts are restless and will not rest until they abide in God. We must journey home; we cannot rest still shipwrecked. 

And Søren Kierkegaard said that to be a saint is “to will the one thing.” In every limited choice we make, we either choose to open ourselves to the real, to the infinite horizon of hope that is God, or we opt for the illusory. 

But if we were created for all good things, how do we know if we have chosen the real, the God-given? How do we distinguish a Penelope from a Kalypso? 

We follow what gives life, what expands our own humanity, even as it demands all our energies. 

In preparation for his journey to Rome, when St. Paul felt compelled to explain the Gospel he preached, he put it ever so simply. “We know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose” (Rom 8:28). 

In explaining himself to the goddess, Odysseus admits to Kalypso that his way home might not be smooth.

And if one of the gods should wreck me upon the wine-faced sea
I shall nonetheless endure, since this heart can endure great woe,
For I’ve already suffered so much and born so many struggles
Upon the high seas and in war. Now let this one be added to those (V.221-224).

The “Odyssey” reminds us that the world resounds with siren calls. Can we hear the summons home? We first heard it in silence, and when we fear we may have lost it, the heart must again seek out the stillness. Choose wisely!

The Rev. Terrance W. Klein is a priest of the Diocese of Dodge City and author of Vanity Faith.