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4th Sunday in Advent
God Sent More Than Miracles and Messages; He Sent Himself
I often talk about how important POV of view
is to my literature students. It is always good to look from another’s eyes. It
takes s imagination, but it provides another perspective, a fresh one,
perhaps, one that no one had considered before. That is where I would like
to begin.
Matthew begins telling us how the birth of
Christ came about according to his POV. When Jesus’ mother Mary was betrothed to
Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found with child through the
Holy Spirit the gospel tells us.
If we back up to Luke’s gospel, he recalls
Mary’s encounter with the Angel, Gabriel. God’s Angel messenger enfolded all
that would happen to her. He told her that she would bear the savoir of the
world the Christ child. That is where we step off here. All that was foretold
now has come to be, and Matthew tells us she is pregnant and she is not
married. In both encounters Angels are God’s voice. How did they see all of
this? Here is another, POV. It is, perhaps, the angel’s.
“Gabriel.” Just the sound of my King’s
voice stirred my heart. I left my post at the entryway and stepped into the
throne room. To my left was the desk on which sat the Book of Life. Ahead
of me was the throne of Almighty God. I entered the circle of unceasing
Light, folded my wings before me to cover my face, and knelt before Him. “Yes,
my Lord?” “You have served the kingdom well. You are a noble messenger.
Never have you flinched in duty. Never have you flagged in zeal.” I bowed
my head, basking in the words. “Whatever you ask, I’ll do a thousand times
over, my King,” I promised. “Of that, I have no doubt, dear messenger.”
His voice assumed a solemnity I’d never heard Him use. “But your greatest work
lies ahead of you. Your next assignment is to carry a gift to Earth.
Behold.”
I lifted my eyes to see a necklace—a clear
vial on a golden chain—dangling from His extended hand.
My Father spoke earnestly, “Though empty, this vial will soon contain My
greatest gift.” …Handing me the necklace, He explained, “This vial will
contain the essence of Myself; a Seed to be placed in the womb of a young girl.
Her name is Mary. She lives among My chosen people. The fruit of the Seed is
the Son of God. Take it to her.” “But how will I know her?” I asked. “Don’t
worry. You will.” I could not comprehend God’s plan, but my understanding was
not essential. My obedience was. I lowered my head, and He draped the
chain around my neck. Amazingly, the vial was no longer empty. It glowed
with Light. “Jesus. Tell her to call My Son Jesus.” Emmanuel he said. (Emmanuel
means God is with us)
The angel carried that light into a fallen
world, a dark place where we encounter Joseph’s struggle.
Imagine how he felt. His world had collapsed, fallen in. All is lost. Mary,
the love of his life, was pregnant. In many ways this is his Advent, until
the Angel appears in his dream and brings light to his darkness.
For the four weeks before Christmas, we
travel through Advent, which represents the darkness of the winter season.
Notice the bleakness of the church; there are no decorations – no flowers.
In many ways, our world seems to be in a
perpetual Advent. The darkness of a fallen humanity is all around us. It
never seems to get better. Each week, it seems, new tragedies abound: a
shooting of Christmas shoppers in the heartland - our baseball heroes struck
out.
For these reasons and others, I suggest is
why besides the commercialism that drives a secular Christmas, houses are decked
out so early – some in October. It is to make Christmas last longer.
However, we need to always remember that
hope is not found in the season, no matter how many lights we string –
it is found in that child, the child who came to earth to save all of us.
He can save us because he is with us though it all.
We love the word “with” “Will you go with
me?” we ask. “To the store, to the hospital, through my life?” God says
he will. “I am with you always,” Jesus said before he ascended to heaven,
“to the very end of the age”
(Matt. 28:20). Search for restrictions on the promise;
you’ll find none in the Bible.
You won’t find “I’ll be with you if you
behave…when you believe. I’ll be with you on Sundays in worship…at mass.” No,
none of that. There’s no withholding tax on God’s “with” promise.
He is with us, always.
In the end, Prophets weren’t enough.
Apostles wouldn’t do. Not even the Angels would suffice. God sent more than
miracles and messages. He sent himself; he sent his Son. “The Word became flesh
and dwelt among us.”
He has always been our hope in an Advent
filled world; we must remember this as we approach and celebrate another
Christmas. Merry Christmas
Our God Is Not a
God of the Past, But of the Future
Feast of Mary the Mother of God
The shepherds went in haste
to Bethlehem and found Mary and Joseph, and the infant lying in the manger.
When they saw this, they made known the message that had been told them
about this child. All was new. After the birth, nothing was ever the same for
the shepherds or for humanity again. It was so much more than just another
New Year. The night sky held a million stars, but one star was brighter than
all of the others.
Tonight we celebrate the
solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God.
The first day of a new year is a day of new
beginnings and Mary represents the perennial new beginning. We can breathe
easier again. There are grounds for hope. Despite all the things that can go
wrong in human life, we begin to believe that love is stronger than hatred; good
stronger than evil and life is really stronger than death. We know this by
the message brought forward in time by those shepherds who saw the child and
believed.
Our God is not a God of the
past, but of the future. He is a God of the New Year. I am sure of this:
whatever is hurting us, whatever is holding us back, whatever is keeping us from
the fullest possible experience of life, God wants to gather it up, and
he will take it away so it will never bother us again if we only give it to him.
Here we are about to enter a month named after the Roman god
Janus. Janus had two faces so that he could look ahead toward the future and
back at the past at the same time. As we get rid of an old year and look
forward to a new one, we all try to be a little like Janus. We know through
experience what we did wrong and what we did right, and hope to do better this
year. Some people make ambitious New Year’s resolutions; others just take a deep
breath and hope for the best.…"
We see before us 12 months, 52
weeks, 365 days, 8,760 hours, and as the play Rent made us aware: 525,600
minutes in a year. So many changes, yet so much is the same. I know in my life
I will look back to a moments in time recalling a particular event and say to
myself, “that was 20 years ago.” Time moves much too quickly, so it is
important to consider what lies ahead and go for it.
I once saw a Broom Hilda comic strip, in which
her troll-like, naive, innocent little friend Irwin puts on a long-tailed formal
tuxedo jacket, picks up a conductor's baton and walks into the woods alone. Irwin
steps up on a fallen tree trunk and begins to wave his arms as if to conduct.
There are no musicians, only rocks, trees and flowers. Soon, musical
notes pour from the rocks, trees and flowers and fill the panel. Finally,
Irwin turns and confidently says to the reader, “It's all in there; you just
have to work at getting it out." That is the message of God to humanity. “It
is all within. Let me help in getting it out this year.”
Some of you know the excitement of beginning a
new phase of life. All of the children are now in school, and so you begin
looking for a full-time job. It's scary, but it's exciting too. Or, there
was perhaps an employment set back, or maybe an early retirement; that too, can
lead to new opportunities if given only half a chance, Maybe a new business
- or finally going back going back to school to earn that degree that you put
on hold as life got in the way of your plans.
When life is over, there is no second chance. The clock that is ticking away the moments of our lives
does not care about winners and losers. It does not care about who succeeds
or who fails. It does not care about excuses, fairness or equality.
We should be constantly aware of the value of
each and every moment of our lives - moments that seem so insignificant that
their loss often goes unnoticed.
We still have all the time we need. Hey, we are on the cusp of
yet another year. We still have lots of chances - lots of opportunities -
lots of years to show what we can do. For most of us, there will be a
tomorrow, a next week, a next month, and a next year. But unless we develop
a sense of urgency, those brief windows of time will be sadly wasted, as were
the weeks and months and years before them. (The year - passing
celebrities our own "brace of Kinsmen")
So, stop waiting. Until your car or home is paid
off. Until you get a new car or home. Until your kids leave the house. Until you
go back to school. Until you finish school. Until you lose 10 lbs. Until you
gain 10 lbs. Until you get married. Until you get a divorce. Until you have
kids. Until you retire. Until summer.
It’s a New Year. There is no better time to
begin. Happiness is found in the journey of life, not in the final destination,
on this side of heaven, anyway.
And to boot - God is in it with us - in all of it.
We just heard as much from Matthew last Sunday. As we honor Mary we say,
Hail Mary full of grace the Lord is with thee; and he is as he is also with
all of us because of Mary.
Happy New Year …
Go Another Way
The Epiphany of the Lord
All the episodes in this chapter of Mathew begin with some mention of
“Herod.” It is while he is “king,” during his days that the Magi come to
Jerusalem. The Magi are Gentiles, and they are regarded as having
knowledge far beyond the ordinary ways of human thought. For these Magi,
the “star” was a revelation, and they have followed it. In this case,
certainly, it was a revelation from God. Epiphany seeks to remind us
that the life of faith is a life of accepting and acknowledging; of
giving thanks for, those gifts God has so freely given us. Sometimes we
curse God for His silence, but fail to thank him for the gifts He has
bestowed.
The pastor of the church was looking over the cradle when he noticed
that the baby Jesus was missing from among the figures. Immediately he
turned and went outside and saw a little boy with a red wagon, and in
the wagon was the figure of the little infant, Jesus. So he walked up
to the boy and said, "Well, where did you get Him, my fine friend?" The
little boy replied, "I got him from the church." "And why did you take
him?" asked the pastor. The boy said, "Well, about a week before
Christmas I prayed to the little Lord Jesus in the manger, and I told
him if he would bring me a red wagon for Christmas I would give him a
ride around the block in it."
Saying that we will thank/promise God if he delivers and thanking or
keeping that promise to God for answered prayers, sometimes are two
different things.
We have this idea fixed in our minds that God does not or should not
appear to us in the ordinary aspects of our lives. We do not expect God
to show up while we are at work in our office, in our cars, in a song,
in a text message, sitting in a classroom, or doing the dishes at the
kitchen sink.
We, in most cases, have a hard time considering that God's answers to
our questions can be found in a 2000 year old book, or on the lips of
our employees or our friends, or that a dream we had during a long,
troubled night is, in fact, a message from God.
The wisdom of the wise men was, and is, simply this - they sought
wisdom, - they were willing to journey in faith to personally discover
what God was doing. They did not hesitate to ask for help along the way,
and finally they accepted what they found - even though it was plainly
dressed - they believed.
They can be an example to us today. In addition to the gold,
frankincense, and myrrh, they gave Jesus some gifts we can give him
today: their hope, their time, and their worship. When everyone else saw
a night sky, this small band of men saw the light.
This should be our call as well; so as we move into this New Year the
gospel tells us, travel as the Wise Men did, go another way.
When the star in the sky is gone, when the kings and Magi are home, when
the shepherds are back with their flock, and the decorations back in the
attic, the work of Christmas begins: to find the lost, to heal the
broken, to feed the hungry, to rebuild our world, and to find a peace
that does not yet exist, and finally…. to give God the thanks of the
Epiphany, our hope, our time, and our worship – and to occasionally give
him a ride in our wagon, the ride that we have promised Him many times
in prayer, but have not yet delivered; 2008 gives us all yet us another
chance.
The Reality Check of Our
Imperfect Lives
4th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Super Bowl:
A woman
was seated in the Superbowl Stadium. The stadium was full of excitement and
electricity. There was not an empty seat to be found, save next to this
woman. A fan seated next to the woman looked at the empty seat and said.
“I wonder who this seat belongs to?” The woman replied, “Oh – it belonged
to my husband, but he died.” “Oh I am sorry.” The other fan said. “However,
I am surprised that you could not find anyone else who wanted the seat.” “So
am I replied the woman, they all insisted on going to the funeral.”
The
Superbowl; what a great segue to this Gospel.
The Sermon on the Mount, according to the scriptures was the
largest gathering that Jesus addressed during His ministry – his Superbowl.
The crowd was great and full of anticipation according to Matthew. Jesus did
not bring people out of the audience and cure their illnesses; He did
not ask for donations; He did not ask the people to worship Him; He did not
say that He was going to die for their sins. What He did do was, teach. He
taught them the way to get back home. He already knew they would be
navigating through a deep, difficult, troubling world. Not much has changed in
our own time.
However, let us be sure we know what the words are about. They are
not about shoulds and oughts. Not about working and doing. They are about
blessing. Jesus begins with the blessings that are already ours. This
passage, this prologue to the Sermon on the Mount, is not about what will be.
It is about what already is. This passage does not tell us that God will be
good to us. It tells us that God is already good to us. It does not
suggest that the kingdom will come - some day. It proclaims, with great joy,
that the kingdom of God is already here.
Right here in the reality check of our imperfect lives, God is
blessing us and loving us. Despite our titles and our public smiles, despite
our bank accounts and the length of our résumés, despite all the acquired riches
of the world, we know, if we are really honest, at a deep level, that we are
very poor in spirit.
Our lives are filled with a spiritual sadness. We know that, as much
as we want to be in charge, we are utterly dependent upon the grace of God to
make it through the night and see the morning.
I am a fan of Grey’s Anatomy, as I would suspect some of you are as well.
In this season’s opener, the head nurse’s toddler is injured in a home
accident while she is at work in the emergency room; she is a gifted surgeon
that spends way too much time at work. As the story of the child’s injury
and his life saving surgery takes center stage in the episode, another
unfolds.
In another room, there is a woman who desperately needs heart surgery;
she is also a faith healer, and she has some uncanny revelations about some of
the young hard-boiled surgeons who attend her. Although she looks deeply
into some of them making them uncomfortable, most all dismiss her and tie
themselves to their real world surgical skills. As the episode continues,
Bailey, the head surgeon and her husband, hold the hand of their recovering
-unconscious child.
While they look at the monitors hoping for life, Dr. Bailey disappears
and comes back with the healer. The scene then fades to black. We see a
combination of faith mixed with the tenuous reality in which we all live
connected to the hope of God. In many ways that is the reality of this Sermon on
the Mount.
We know that when we really stick up for what we believe and what we
value, the power brokers of this world will laugh at us and pass us by.
As difficult as this is to do in our busy world, if we can see ourselves
in that small band of disciples mysteriously pulled out of the crowd, gathered
at the feet of Jesus, learning to see grace in a graceless world - then
we are already the broken, needy, vulnerable people described by the beatitudes.
And it is because of that brokenness, because of our neediness, that we
are blessed.
So, the final message from the mount….
When you can’t see Him, trust Him. He is closer than we have ever
dreamed…
In fact he is just beyond the perfect facade our lives. So blessed are
you who seek him there… for there you will find His peace….. The peace only he
can offer.
He Silences Heaven, so
He Won’t Miss a Word.
5th Sunday of Lent
The
story of the raising of Lazarus is unique to John’s gospel. We hear it just
before Palm Sunday, and Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. This is such a rich gospel
to preach about. It contains comfort for those who mourn, hope for
those who live and glorious new life for those who have died.
I would like to talk about the “someone” of this gospel that none of us know.
After all most of us have heard about Martha and Mary, we know they have
a brother Lazarus who was Jesus' friend. But we don’t know much about
the person I am going to talk about. His looks are immaterial. His gender is of
no concern. His title is irrelevant. He is important not because of who he
is, but because of what he did.
He went to Jesus on behalf of a friend. His friend was sick, and Jesus could
help, and someone needed to go to Jesus. Others cared for the sick man in
different ways. Each role was crucial. Each person was helpful, but none
was more vital that the one who went to Jesus.
He went because he was asked to go. “We need someone who will tell Jesus my
brother is sick. We need someone to ask him to come.” “Will you go?”
The question came from two sisters. They would have gone themselves but they
couldn't leave their brother. They need someone to go, but not just anyone.
Some were to busy, others did not know the way. This was no small request.
They needed someone who knew how to find Jesus. Someone who wouldn’t quit in
mid-journey and wander off. Someone who would make sure the message was
delivered. Someone who was convinced as they were that Jesus must know what has
happened. So Martha and Mary sent someone to tell him: “Lord the one you
love is sick” And because someone went Jesus responded.
How important do you think this person was in the healing of Lazarus? How
essential was his role? Some might regard it as a minor one. After all
didn't Jesus know everything? Certainly he knew Lazarus was sick, granted,
but he did not respond to the need until someone came to Him with the message.
“When Jesus heard this, he said. “This sickness will not end in death. It is
for the glory of God to bring glory to the son of God”. Lazarus healed was
only healed after someone made the request, a prayer so to speak.
Would Jesus have responded if the messenger had not spoken? Perhaps, but we
just don’t know. The power of God was triggered by prayer. Jesus
looked down into the very throat of death and called Lazarus back to
life...... all because someone prayed. This is still key for us today. It
is as relevant now as it was then, especially in light f the current state of
the world.
In heaven the prayers of saintly intercession is very much valued. John,
the apostle would agree. He wrote this story of Lazarus and was careful to
show the sequence. The healing began, when the request was made.
When he told Jesus of the illness he said, “Lord the one you love is sick.” He
doesn’t say; the one who loves you is sick. The power of prayer, in other
words does not depend on the one who makes the prayer, but on the one who hears
it. The one who loves us regardless of who we are - or what we have
done.
We can
be that someone; the starter of the miracle. Lord the one you love is tired,
sick, hungry, fearful, lonely, depressed, like a train off the tracks. Our words may vary, but the response
never changes. The Lord hears the prayer. He silences heaven, so he won’t miss
a word.
You and I live in a loud world, a busy world. To get someone's attention is no
easy task. The new cell phone/car law was enacted because we just
never stop doing no matter what the cost might be. So he or she must be willing to turn down the radio, the TV, move away
from the computer and set down their book or newspaper and silence their cell
phone (yikes!). When someone is
willing to silence everything else so they can hear us clearly, it is a
privilege. How many arguments start over the lack of listening?
John’s message is critical. You talk to God, because God listens. Your voice
matters in heaven. Even if you stammer, or stumble, even if what you have to
say impresses no one, it impresses God - and he listens. He listens to
the lonely, elderly,
Alzheimer's patient in a nursing home; the gruff confession of a
prison inmate, or when the alcoholic begs for mercy, yet again. He listens
when the spouse seeks guidance, or when the businessman stops off in a
airport chapel. God listens.
Our prayers move God to change the world; too often we quit, we give up. Mother
Theresa admitted as much. We may not understand the mystery
of prayer; we don’t need to. But this much is clear; actions in heaven
begin when someone prays on earth, what an amazing thought. So when someone
says to you: “I am praying you; thank them”. And when someone asks for prayers,
pray for them.”
So let
these last days of Lent be filled with your prayers.
Lazarus was three days
dead in a sealed tomb when he heard a voice, lifted his head, and looked over
his shoulder and saw Jesus standing there. God had followed him into death and
back into life. Christ, says to us: “Your part is to trust. Trust me to do what
you can’t.” Just ask...
Taken Blessed, Broken and Given
3rd Sunday of Easter
A colleague wrote in a poem:
“The weather outside is never the weather inside”
(Jon Curley).
I think, in many ways, this
describes the feelings of these two disciples. There is a storm raging within
about all that has happened that does not reflect the world in which they now
live; most people were going about their normal business.
These two disciples, who are
really unknown, stand in for all of us – the disciples of today. They are just
followers of the Lord; their names are unimportant. This event takes place on
Easter morning just seven miles from the Jerusalem. These two are moving away
from those horrific events that, I would suspect, have shattered their world.
They had loved Jesus very
much that is clear, and they had followed him earnestly in their own
relatively insignificant way. Now Jesus was gone, and they were
desperately lonely, afraid and unsure of themselves and of the future. What do
we do now must have been their question. The unpredictable weather inside had
changed, suddenly – without much warning.
As they walk, they recall
happier days when Jesus was among them, teaching and healing. They ask
themselves the meaning of all that had happened; they find no answer.
Ever been there? You ask the meaning of an
illness, a sudden job loss, a family meltdown, a betrayal, a death; you ask God for answers,
you receive none. You are all alone – or so you think.
Our Lord comes to us quietly that is why,
sometimes, I suspect, we too, do not recognize him; we miss him in the holy breeze he
creates as he walks by.
Jesus doesn't wait for them or us to find
him. He meets them and he meets us where we are. Wherever that is. He
meets us in our deepest pain, in our most secret sin – he knows and he is still
comes. He comes to heal, to forgive, to help us find our way back to him.
Often we think we must pound on Heaven's
door to get God's attention. If I just pray often enough, if I get on my
knees, if I clean up my life, if I serve the church, then maybe God will notice
maybe then God will open the door give me what I need.
But the picture this Gospel gives us
is not of our pounding on God's door, but of Christ gently knocking on ours.
We are the ones with an attention problem.
You see, our tendency is to look for Christ
in the extraordinary, the spectacular, and the breathtaking. I love Superman;
I am a child of the 50’s TV Show. And to my wife’s dismay – have most of the old
shows. Remember 1st SUPERMAN movie? Remember when Superman
first reveals his superpowers to the world? Lois Lane is dangling from a
cable, high atop the Daily Planet building, screaming at the top of her lungs.
Just as she begins her long fall to earth, Superman changes into his flashy
red, yellow, and blue outfit and swoops up to catch her in midair. "Don't
worry, Miss," he assures her, "I've got you."
"You've got me," she exclaims. "Who's got you?" Just then the helicopter
that has been perched on the edge of the building begins to fall straight toward
them and the crowd below. But Superman merely grabs it with his one free arm and
gently sets both it and Lois safely back on the landing pad. When he turns to
leave, an astonished Lois stammers out the words, "Who ARE you?"
"A friend," Superman replies warmly, and as he flies straight up into the
air with a sort of half twist. Lois faints in a heap.
That's the way, I suspect, that we would like for Christ to come to us, as a
superhero. And that is why we often miss him; because he finds us in the
ordinary.
Christ reveals himself as he has
always revealed himself through His Word and through the Sacraments,
especially though in the breaking of the bread, the Eucharist.
Think about it: as believers our lives mimic
the breaking of the bread because we too, are taken, we are blessed, we are
sometimes broken and we are given to others, our families, our friends and
finally back to God.
When I come to Mass I often look for God.
I say to myself – okay where are you today? Are you even here? On Good Friday – I saw
clearly him in an elderly woman with arthritic knees who kneeled at the foot of his cross to venerate
it. He was as close to me as you are now. I thanked Him yet again for allowing me
to recognize him once more; because, I too, often miss him, even when he is
standing next to me.
Get Back on the Bus
7th Sunday of Easter
Jesus Prays
for His Disciples
in this Gospel, but he reaches through time and touches us here today,
because – we are his disciples, now. He prays that we will make it back to
him. This passage reveals the heart of prayer. Once more He speaks of his
work as the revealer of His Father.
In Shakespeare's Macbeth, Macbeth has heard
that the queen is dead, and he knows his own death is imminent. He delivers his
famous soliloquy:
Tomorrow, and
tomorrow and tomorrow / creeps in this petty pace from day to day, / To the last
syllable of recorded time, / And all our yesterdays have lighted fools / The way
to dusty death. Out, Out, brief candle / Life's but a walking shadow, a poor
player / That struts and frets his hour upon the stage /and then is heard no
more. It is a tale / Told by an idiot. Full of sound and fury /
Signifying nothing.
Is Macbeth right? Is life nothing but a
shadow having no substance, no meaning? Where we strut our stuff an then we are
heard no more? Some would argue, yes. Ah… but not Christians. For us, it is
so much more.
Writers, philosophers and theologians since
recorded time have tried to answer this question. I don't think any of them have
been successful.
Some one once said that "Trying to speak
about the ultimate reality of life is like sending a kiss through a messenger."
Something gets lost in the translation.
What is the meaning of life? A philosophical
question to be sure, but this is not only the philosopher's question. It is our
question, and therefore, a question that we all ask from time to time.
It might be a question that is asked in
deepest despair, in the fragility of hope, out of cynicism, or out of sincere
curiosity. It is a deep desire to have goals and guidance in life.
However, we raise the question about the
meaning of life, it is our most basic and fundamental question. It cuts to the
foundation of who we believe we are, and to this self we think we own.
And so it comes as no surprise then that
Jesus deals with this question and answers it. Surprisingly, the answer is not given in
the context of an argument with the Jewish leaders or in a discussion
with his disciples in a parable; it is not given in the great Sermon on
the Mount.
Jesus deals with the meaning of life in
the context of prayers to his father on behalf of those then and now who
have walked the walk and talked the talk.
The Disciples are in the upper room,
now. They have just finished the meal and Jesus is thinking about his own death,
which will occur within 24 hours. He knows he is about to leave his disciples
alone in the world, and he goes before God as a priest would, to intercede
for them; to pray for them.
In essence, Jesus says, "The meaning
of life is that you fully understand that you have a personal relationship with
God, through his Son, Jesus."
That said, Jesus still understands just how
difficult it was going to be not only for his disciples but for all of us to
come, and so he prays a prayer that reaches out and touches all of time, all
of human existence, as only God can do.
He Prays for Our Protection from the
World. We need protection because the world can and does suck the life
from us. Patsy Clairmont, author of the book God Uses Cracked Pots,
tells a story about her youngest son Jason. Little Jason has two goals in life.
One is to have fun, and the other is to rest. (if you have teenagers, bet
you can relate).
Jason does both quite well. So it was no
surprise when he was sent out to catch the school bus one fall day and there
was, a few moments later, a knock on the door. Mom flew to the door, jerked it
open, and their stood little Jason looking up with his back pack and lunch
box dragging the ground.
"What are you still doing here?" Mom
demanded. He bravely said, "I've quit school." Mom said, "Quit school?"
"Why have you quit school?" Without hesitation Jason said, "It's too
long, it's too hard, and it's too boring." She shot back, "You have just
described life. Get on the bus!"
The day in and day out tediousness and
challenges of life can be overwhelming. Sometimes life can be just too long,
too hard, and too boring, and in this journey we can lose our Christian hope and
joy and succumb to despair, depression and loss of faith. It's then that we
try to find meaning in life in things other than God; the pope said as much
during his visit.
We look for escape through a bottle,
drugs, in the form of another relationship outside of marriage. We try to
resolve conflict through violence; or we try to solve material desires by
stealing or cheating.
Jesus understood all of this, and
he still calls every single person here to himself, regardless of your personal
circumstances or sins.
God is here to protect us, to give our souls the security that we need in
order to hear his call and follow. We need to deepen our relationship
with God in the journey.
Jesus already knows that life can be too
long, too hard, and at times too boring. He prays only that we make it to
the bus stop, so that we too may ride to heaven with him. While Macbeth leaves
his life’s candle on the earth, we take ours with us…
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