[For those keeping track, this is my third homily, given on Sunday, November 9, 2008 at Holy Rosary Parish in Cleveland's Little Italy neighborhood.]
Today we celebrate the Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome. St. John Lateran is the see, or official cathedral Church of the Bishop of Rome, Pope Benedict XVI. Today we know this as the Lateran Basilica and it remains the first Church among all Churches. It is still the cathedral for the Pope, the official seat of his authority, and thus a place of central importance to us, highly symbolic as a place of God’s presence with His faithful people.
A.) This gives us the opportunity to imagine back in time a little about why this celebration is so significant. Recall that Christianity emerged as an offshoot of Jewish religion which itself had fallen under the civil authority of the Roman Empire. Judaism was an accepted religion in the Roman Empire, but for the first 300 years of her existence, Christianity enjoyed little official recognition. I’m sure you can recall learning about the early Church martyrs, Christians persecuted because of their faith in God against the pagan gods and because of their rejection of Roman attempts to force them to worship Caesar as a god. They faced a life and death struggle. For so many years, their worship needed to be done in relative secret at the houses of other Christians. The world was not ready yet to welcome them and offered little in the way of support.
Yet our Christian ancestors remained faithful to God’s call in their life to love, honor, and worship Him with lives of mercy and forgiveness towards all. They made a place in their lives for our Lord. And despite the persecution and discrimination they faced, the early Christian community remained grounded in their faith, striving to be faithful citizens in service to their villages and to the empire that cared so little for them.
B.) Imagine then, the amazing joy of these early Christians when, after centuries of struggle, their faith was recognized and even rewarded. In 311 AD, Emperor Constantine, fast at work uniting the Eastern and Western Roman Empire, declared Christianity the religion of the Roman Empire. To provide the Church a suitable place from which its ministry on Earth could continue and grow, Constantine gave the Church the land of an old fortress and on the site constructed a new basilica for the Church and a palace for the Pope. Imagine that shift from struggle to acceptance and the joy of receiving a new home where they could live in peace.
C.) One of the most human things we can do in our time here on earth is offer God a home in our hearts; a place of rest and a place from which to share his peace with the world. St. Paul calls our attention to this when he asks, “Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” This feast then, offers us the chance to reflect upon our own dignity as human beings and the home we are building for God; the home we offer from within that takes its fullest shape when we gather as one people in his name.
B’.) The challenge for us is how to go about preparing this home for God, both in our hearts and in the world around us. Living in awareness of our dignity as human persons requires a continual effort to get to know Christ. This means that we need to place ourselves in His presence with unwavering consistency and commit ourselves to prayer and faithful living. Our lives move continually from encounter with Christ in prayer (especially here in our Eucharistic liturgy) to service of others and back to encounter. By this we continue in the line of our Early Christian ancestors who, motivated by the joy of their own encounter with Christ, sought to transform the world by sharing that same mercy and love with others. And borrowing once again from their example, the joys we hope to experience in life, come when we are citizens of our faith and faithful citizens in the world by allowing Christ to act through us. Thus, faithful citizenship is one means we must employ as we seek to prepare a home for God within our hearts and in the world around us.
A’.) Faithful citizenship is not something we do one day every four years. Faithful citizenship requires our honest and on-going participation in the good efforts of our community. But we must also stay alert and attentive to threats against the dignity of the human person as they also threaten the bonds of community. Today we recognize threats to the dignity of the human person in the evils of abortion, the destruction of human embryos in medical research, assisted suicide, the death penalty, war, racism, torture, usury, and the list goes on. It is not an option for Catholics to openly support any of these evils. Nor is it an option to remain silent in the face of them. Our lives must give witness to the truth both in our words and through consistent, prayerful and peaceful action in opposition to them.
While we can and should support the good efforts of our country’s leaders as they strive to promote the common good of our nation, we, as Catholics, also have a duty to ensure that our voice is heard and our positions considered on all issues that run contrary to the Gospel of life. We must lead with love, sharing the same love that God offered to all of us through the gift and sacrifice of his Son who died for our sins and for our salvation.
Conclusion:
One of the most human things we can do in our time here on earth is offer God a home in our hearts from which He can go forth in Spirit to renew and transform the earth. We are the temple of God and should live in awareness of the Spirit of God dwelling within us. And even when we face threats to that dignity, from our own personal sins or the sins of the world around us, we must remain faithful witnesses to the love of God offered to us through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Our faithful and patient endurance of the trials of life through which we share in the sufferings of the cross, will be rewarded by an ever increasing awareness of God’s presence dwelling within; a presence from which we can act with confidence to love and serve the needs of others.
Friday, November 28, 2008
Thursday, November 27, 2008
"That Self-Sufficient Thing" - A Homily
This was my second homily. This one was prepared for my brother seminarians in Cleveland and was delivered on Saturday of the 31st Week of Ordinary Time, November 8, 2008:
A Fistful of Dollars. This is the Spaghetti Western movie that launched the career of Hollywood legend Clint Eastwood. In this classic tale, a mysterious unnamed man wanders into the midst of some forgotten border town where the villagers find themselves caught in between two rival gangs; a damsel in distress, corrupt law, little order…the perfect place for the self-made man to make a few bucks. This classic tale with its classic hero perfectly captures the image of the self-sufficient loner whose dry wit, cutting humor, and quick draw make him capable of profiting from any situation. Whether you’ve seen this movie or not, you’ve seen this character. Maybe you’ve even tried to imitate him.
When I was growing up, he was in Top Gun. My junior high classmates and I were all stuck on the idea of becoming Navy fighter pilots for several years after this movie came out. Guys like Clint Eastwood, Tom Cruise, Al Pacino, Vin Disel, Matt Damon…at one point in time or another, they’ve all played this character.
Clint Eastwood captures it well in a Time Magazine interview from 1971 when he explained “A guy sits in the audience, he's 25 and scared stiff about what he's going to do with his life. He wants to be that self-sufficient thing he sees up there on the screen in my pictures. A superhuman character who has all the answers, is doubly cool, exists on his own without society or the help of society's police forces.”
“That self-sufficient thing.” Self-sufficiency…it’s one of America’s prized values. [That means that it is fair game for us to take a prophetic look at it from the Gospel viewpoint].
I have described one image of self-sufficiency already. St. Paul and our Gospel today offer us a different portrait of self-sufficiency that is worthy of exploring. In the first reading to the Philippians, St. Paul gratefully accepts a contribution for his support, but he does so by explaining very clearly that he has “learned, in whatever situation I find myself, to be self-sufficient.” He’s trying to make it clear that, while grateful for them, he’s not dependent upon the gifts that the Philippians are sending because he relies first upon God, accepting in peace whatever comes his way, positive or negative.
This stance allows him to see that the gift by the Philippians, while helpful to him, is actually more spiritually beneficial for the Philippians as they themselves practice a real act of charity. It’s a gesture of humility. I find this attitude one in stark contrast to the Hollywood man. Where the Hollywood man remains fiercely independent, St. Paul’s self-sufficiency speaks to a freedom to accept the gifts of others that recognizes the benefits that the giver will receive as being more important than his own.
And that’s just one characteristic. If we do a quick side-by side comparison of St. Paul and our Gospel to the Clint Eastwood unnamed man in A Fistful of Dollars we’ll see even more contrast:
The Self-Sufficient Christian of the Gospel:
- Is Trustworthy in matters small and large, even for another’s profit.
- Is generous towards others and merciful
- Is at peace when he gets his way; and at peace when he doesn’t
-His confidence comes from Communion with others through with and in Christ
- His power comes from Christ
-Allows God to justify him in any circumstance
The "Self-Sufficient" Man of Hollywood:
- Relies on deception; plays sides against each other for his own gain
- expects or demands a certain outcome
- is destabilized by circumstances beyond his control; relies upon getting the upper hand
- Isolated from society, His confidence conseals a fear of communion with others and the intimacy that this requires.
- His power extends only as far as his own strength, stamina, or his screenwriters permit
-Must make his own stand and justifies himself to himself.
All of this begs the question; do you want to be “that self-sufficient thing” up there on the big screen? Or do you want to be the self-sufficient man that St. Paul was; that he was in imitation of THE self-sufficient man, our Lord Jesus Christ? You can choose either, although I’d have to say that despite the glamour of it on the big screen, I don’t think in the end the Hollywood version is all that creative. I mean, in the end, he walks away alone clinging to nothing but a fistful of dollars. The self-sufficient Christian man is a far cry from “that self-sufficient thing” on the big screen. His destiny is communion with all of God’s faithful and is held up into eternity by the very hand of God.
I’d like to suggest that our time here in the seminary, if we’re attentive to what’s being asked of us as seminarians, is helping move us from the image of “that self-sufficient thing” of Hollywood to the self-sufficiency of St. Paul. Where we find ourselves failing in matters of trust (like coming to all of the community’s prayer times and required events), we need to recommit ourselves to obedience in following the rule of life in the community; Where we always expect certain outcomes (such as expecting teachers to teach us only what we think we ought to be taught), we need to learn patience and to give the bishop and faculty the benefit of the doubt that they might know something about our formation that we don’t yet understand; Where we depend on our own strength (such as forcing prayer to happen on my terms, or trying to force a brother seminarian to behave the way we want them to behave), we need to allow God room to enter our lives through the gift of prayer that He gives us and allow our charity towards our brother to be the instrument that may lead to his conversion from disagreeable behaviors.
Where we are destabilized by circumstances beyond our control we need to seek the surest path to peace, forgiveness. Where we feel isolated even in the midst of community, we need to have faith in our communion with Christ and boldly serve others as he served others. Where we face the temptation to justify ourselves before God and before others, we need to embrace the humility needed to allow God to be the One who justifies us. This is the path to self-sufficiency, my brothers and sisters. It is the path that St. Paul followed in perfect imitation of the Master, our Lord Jesus Christ.
In the end, the choice is ours: we can claim our fistful of dollars and try to become “that self-sufficient thing” on the big screen; or we can put our hands in God’s and become one in his love and mercy forever.
A Fistful of Dollars. This is the Spaghetti Western movie that launched the career of Hollywood legend Clint Eastwood. In this classic tale, a mysterious unnamed man wanders into the midst of some forgotten border town where the villagers find themselves caught in between two rival gangs; a damsel in distress, corrupt law, little order…the perfect place for the self-made man to make a few bucks. This classic tale with its classic hero perfectly captures the image of the self-sufficient loner whose dry wit, cutting humor, and quick draw make him capable of profiting from any situation. Whether you’ve seen this movie or not, you’ve seen this character. Maybe you’ve even tried to imitate him.
When I was growing up, he was in Top Gun. My junior high classmates and I were all stuck on the idea of becoming Navy fighter pilots for several years after this movie came out. Guys like Clint Eastwood, Tom Cruise, Al Pacino, Vin Disel, Matt Damon…at one point in time or another, they’ve all played this character.
Clint Eastwood captures it well in a Time Magazine interview from 1971 when he explained “A guy sits in the audience, he's 25 and scared stiff about what he's going to do with his life. He wants to be that self-sufficient thing he sees up there on the screen in my pictures. A superhuman character who has all the answers, is doubly cool, exists on his own without society or the help of society's police forces.”
“That self-sufficient thing.” Self-sufficiency…it’s one of America’s prized values. [That means that it is fair game for us to take a prophetic look at it from the Gospel viewpoint].
I have described one image of self-sufficiency already. St. Paul and our Gospel today offer us a different portrait of self-sufficiency that is worthy of exploring. In the first reading to the Philippians, St. Paul gratefully accepts a contribution for his support, but he does so by explaining very clearly that he has “learned, in whatever situation I find myself, to be self-sufficient.” He’s trying to make it clear that, while grateful for them, he’s not dependent upon the gifts that the Philippians are sending because he relies first upon God, accepting in peace whatever comes his way, positive or negative.
This stance allows him to see that the gift by the Philippians, while helpful to him, is actually more spiritually beneficial for the Philippians as they themselves practice a real act of charity. It’s a gesture of humility. I find this attitude one in stark contrast to the Hollywood man. Where the Hollywood man remains fiercely independent, St. Paul’s self-sufficiency speaks to a freedom to accept the gifts of others that recognizes the benefits that the giver will receive as being more important than his own.
And that’s just one characteristic. If we do a quick side-by side comparison of St. Paul and our Gospel to the Clint Eastwood unnamed man in A Fistful of Dollars we’ll see even more contrast:
The Self-Sufficient Christian of the Gospel:
- Is Trustworthy in matters small and large, even for another’s profit.
- Is generous towards others and merciful
- Is at peace when he gets his way; and at peace when he doesn’t
-His confidence comes from Communion with others through with and in Christ
- His power comes from Christ
-Allows God to justify him in any circumstance
The "Self-Sufficient" Man of Hollywood:
- Relies on deception; plays sides against each other for his own gain
- expects or demands a certain outcome
- is destabilized by circumstances beyond his control; relies upon getting the upper hand
- Isolated from society, His confidence conseals a fear of communion with others and the intimacy that this requires.
- His power extends only as far as his own strength, stamina, or his screenwriters permit
-Must make his own stand and justifies himself to himself.
All of this begs the question; do you want to be “that self-sufficient thing” up there on the big screen? Or do you want to be the self-sufficient man that St. Paul was; that he was in imitation of THE self-sufficient man, our Lord Jesus Christ? You can choose either, although I’d have to say that despite the glamour of it on the big screen, I don’t think in the end the Hollywood version is all that creative. I mean, in the end, he walks away alone clinging to nothing but a fistful of dollars. The self-sufficient Christian man is a far cry from “that self-sufficient thing” on the big screen. His destiny is communion with all of God’s faithful and is held up into eternity by the very hand of God.
I’d like to suggest that our time here in the seminary, if we’re attentive to what’s being asked of us as seminarians, is helping move us from the image of “that self-sufficient thing” of Hollywood to the self-sufficiency of St. Paul. Where we find ourselves failing in matters of trust (like coming to all of the community’s prayer times and required events), we need to recommit ourselves to obedience in following the rule of life in the community; Where we always expect certain outcomes (such as expecting teachers to teach us only what we think we ought to be taught), we need to learn patience and to give the bishop and faculty the benefit of the doubt that they might know something about our formation that we don’t yet understand; Where we depend on our own strength (such as forcing prayer to happen on my terms, or trying to force a brother seminarian to behave the way we want them to behave), we need to allow God room to enter our lives through the gift of prayer that He gives us and allow our charity towards our brother to be the instrument that may lead to his conversion from disagreeable behaviors.
Where we are destabilized by circumstances beyond our control we need to seek the surest path to peace, forgiveness. Where we feel isolated even in the midst of community, we need to have faith in our communion with Christ and boldly serve others as he served others. Where we face the temptation to justify ourselves before God and before others, we need to embrace the humility needed to allow God to be the One who justifies us. This is the path to self-sufficiency, my brothers and sisters. It is the path that St. Paul followed in perfect imitation of the Master, our Lord Jesus Christ.
In the end, the choice is ours: we can claim our fistful of dollars and try to become “that self-sufficient thing” on the big screen; or we can put our hands in God’s and become one in his love and mercy forever.
My First Homily as a Deacon - All Saints Day 2008
Hello again...It's been just over a month since my classmates and I were ordained transitional deacons and life has been moving along at a pretty good clip. In the 'grace' of ordination and wanting to celebrate life as a deacon, you could say that I momentarily forgot that I was still a student in the middle of a semester. As soon as I came down from cloud nine, I had a little catching up to do even as I was adjusting to a new life of ministry and preaching. But, overall, things have been good.
Now that I have a little time over Thanksgiving weekend, I thought it would be good to share some of my first 'real' homilies. Good preachers continually develop their preaching throughout their lives so you could say that this and the ones that follow mark my starting point as a practitioner of the art of homiletics.
This first homily I had the privilege of delivering on the Saturday after I was ordained a transitional deacon. It also happened to fall on All Saints' Day (which is also my birthday). It was delivered on 1 November 2008 at Holy Rosary Church in Little Italy, Cleveland, Ohio, which is my diaconate assignment.
[Let it be noted that I started my professional preaching ministry with a small fish story. This one was told by a contemporary author, David Foster Wallace, during a Kenyan University Commencement Address in 2005 (May 21, 2005).]
(A) There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says "Morning, boys. How's the water?" And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes "What the h[eck] is water?"
(B) Who are the Saints? It seems almost a silly question to ask. After all, we’ve been learning about the Saint since we were all kids. We know them to be, ‘models of virtue’, that they are the “blessed,” the merciful, the peacemakers, the clean of heart, and that they are role models for us to follow. We hear it said that we are to live lives of holiness like the Saints. We are taught that it is right to venerate the saints, and we know from our history that this veneration, often mistaken for worship, sometimes has been viewed controversially by those outside the faith; yet we are to hold them up in great light. And we hear that the Saints are praying for us in a grand Communion of Saints that we should all be comforted to know exists. Role models, virtues, veneration, the Communion of Saints: these form the basis of our understanding of the Saints. And they are all good things, and true, and worthy of praise.
Yet as I reflected on the Saints this week, I found myself struggling with the loftiness of all of these images and how to explain them to all of you. I found myself struggling with the question, “What do the Saints mean for us today?”
(C) I mean, if you went and found Joe the Plumber, what would he have to say about the Saints in his life?
· And what do the Saints mean to the Alcoholic whose facing that one drink that could push his life over the edge.
· Or for the prostitute who’s addicted to drugs and is looking for her next mark just to find her next hit so that she can keep the withdrawal symptoms at bay.
· What do the Saints mean for the abused wife who’s just trying to keep things calm in the household or for the abusing husband who knows he shouldn’t hit yet can’t seem to find the alternative way of expressing the anger that has built up inside.
· What do the Saints mean for the teenager, adult, or elderly person whose life has become so confusing or seemingly so pointless and out of control, that they are standing on the brink of suicide?
· What do the Saints mean for you and me in our most troubling moments, in the dark corners of our lives, and for that secret about ourselves that we want no one else to see or know?
(D) The Truth is that the lives of the Saints started more like yours and mind than the lofty image we tend to hold up. What makes a Saint comes down to one simple, yet challenging thing: In that moment in their life, when all else seemed hopeless and lost, when they reached that point where they felt they could not go on any farther, they gave expression to a truth spoken from their heart, from a place that many didn’t realize still existed. And this truth rang out seeking to carry them home: In that silence, they sought the mercy of God and realized the truth about themselves and their situation. They realized that they were not in control, nor could they trust themselves to be in control. Arriving at this endpoint, they came to believe in the goodness of God and surrendered control to Him. In short, they died to themselves and received the life God had been calling them to all along. Thus, what makes the Saints great is not what they did, it’s what God did for them.
(C’) In light of this understanding, who can we then say are the saints in our life?
· I think a Saint is the alcoholic or drug addict who in the din of his stupor hears God’s voice and finally goes to an AA meeting.
· I think a Saint is the prostitute who suddenly discovers the dignity she has as a child of God, the image of God residing within her still, and begins the journey away from the street.
· I think a Saint is the abused wife who finally seeks help from her priest or pastoral ministers, or goes to an abused woman’s shelter, not only for their own sake but for the sake of their children and even their abusing husband.
· And what about the Abusing husband? I think even he can be a saint if he realizes that his problem is bigger than himself, if he allows the illusion of the need for control to be burst, and seeks the help he needs, from the Church or from the local community.
· I think a Saint is certainly anyone who, while thinking about taking their own life, pauses and realizes that maybe God’s mercy is greater than their struggle and who courageously decide to call a Suicide hotline, or their friends, or their parents or teachers, tell them directly what they are thinking about doing and then asked for help.
· And I think we can all be Saints when we face our own dark corners and secrets and bring them to light in a good confession to a priest, or offer them up for God to change on this, His table of sacrifice.
(B’) Once we’ve made that critical first step, that turn towards God and accept the mercy that He always—always—offers, we begin the path to holiness for which the saints are acclaimed. We learn that it was God that cleaned their hearts, allowing them the strength to take their gaze from worldly things and to see God’s grace at work in the world around them. In their poverty, he provided them a new Kingdom; in their mourning he sent those who would console them; and by His own mercy, he taught them to be merciful. And rescued from the brink of destruction and restored to new life, the Saints offered the rest of their lives sharing the mercy they themselves had received from God and inviting those who received their message to join them in praising God in his goodness. The saints invite us to realize that the God who called them and did so much for them continues to call us too. That is the legacy of the Saints.
(A’) Like all of us, the Saints started off like the two little fish. At first, they did not see the most obvious thing around them, the water—or what I’d consider God’s ever present gift of mercy and love. The Saints have grown up to become the big fish and by the grace of God have come to see the water that held them in life on earth and that continues to hold them in life in heaven. They have taken their gaze off of the sin and distraction that narrows our focus and limits our vision and looked again at God’s mercy. And by the example of their lives, and God’s promise to do with our lives what He did in theirs, the Saints continue to pose the kind of question to us that causes us to stop and reconsider something we may not yet clearly see. So each day, when the Saints swim by on our liturgical calendar, may we be blessed to hear them call out to us, “Good morning, boys and girls. How’s the water?” And may we see the water, and respond with faith; swim forward and allow our lives to become such that others will stop and reconsider something that they do not yet clearly see.
Now that I have a little time over Thanksgiving weekend, I thought it would be good to share some of my first 'real' homilies. Good preachers continually develop their preaching throughout their lives so you could say that this and the ones that follow mark my starting point as a practitioner of the art of homiletics.
This first homily I had the privilege of delivering on the Saturday after I was ordained a transitional deacon. It also happened to fall on All Saints' Day (which is also my birthday). It was delivered on 1 November 2008 at Holy Rosary Church in Little Italy, Cleveland, Ohio, which is my diaconate assignment.
[Let it be noted that I started my professional preaching ministry with a small fish story. This one was told by a contemporary author, David Foster Wallace, during a Kenyan University Commencement Address in 2005 (May 21, 2005).]
(A) There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says "Morning, boys. How's the water?" And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes "What the h[eck] is water?"
(B) Who are the Saints? It seems almost a silly question to ask. After all, we’ve been learning about the Saint since we were all kids. We know them to be, ‘models of virtue’, that they are the “blessed,” the merciful, the peacemakers, the clean of heart, and that they are role models for us to follow. We hear it said that we are to live lives of holiness like the Saints. We are taught that it is right to venerate the saints, and we know from our history that this veneration, often mistaken for worship, sometimes has been viewed controversially by those outside the faith; yet we are to hold them up in great light. And we hear that the Saints are praying for us in a grand Communion of Saints that we should all be comforted to know exists. Role models, virtues, veneration, the Communion of Saints: these form the basis of our understanding of the Saints. And they are all good things, and true, and worthy of praise.
Yet as I reflected on the Saints this week, I found myself struggling with the loftiness of all of these images and how to explain them to all of you. I found myself struggling with the question, “What do the Saints mean for us today?”
(C) I mean, if you went and found Joe the Plumber, what would he have to say about the Saints in his life?
· And what do the Saints mean to the Alcoholic whose facing that one drink that could push his life over the edge.
· Or for the prostitute who’s addicted to drugs and is looking for her next mark just to find her next hit so that she can keep the withdrawal symptoms at bay.
· What do the Saints mean for the abused wife who’s just trying to keep things calm in the household or for the abusing husband who knows he shouldn’t hit yet can’t seem to find the alternative way of expressing the anger that has built up inside.
· What do the Saints mean for the teenager, adult, or elderly person whose life has become so confusing or seemingly so pointless and out of control, that they are standing on the brink of suicide?
· What do the Saints mean for you and me in our most troubling moments, in the dark corners of our lives, and for that secret about ourselves that we want no one else to see or know?
(D) The Truth is that the lives of the Saints started more like yours and mind than the lofty image we tend to hold up. What makes a Saint comes down to one simple, yet challenging thing: In that moment in their life, when all else seemed hopeless and lost, when they reached that point where they felt they could not go on any farther, they gave expression to a truth spoken from their heart, from a place that many didn’t realize still existed. And this truth rang out seeking to carry them home: In that silence, they sought the mercy of God and realized the truth about themselves and their situation. They realized that they were not in control, nor could they trust themselves to be in control. Arriving at this endpoint, they came to believe in the goodness of God and surrendered control to Him. In short, they died to themselves and received the life God had been calling them to all along. Thus, what makes the Saints great is not what they did, it’s what God did for them.
(C’) In light of this understanding, who can we then say are the saints in our life?
· I think a Saint is the alcoholic or drug addict who in the din of his stupor hears God’s voice and finally goes to an AA meeting.
· I think a Saint is the prostitute who suddenly discovers the dignity she has as a child of God, the image of God residing within her still, and begins the journey away from the street.
· I think a Saint is the abused wife who finally seeks help from her priest or pastoral ministers, or goes to an abused woman’s shelter, not only for their own sake but for the sake of their children and even their abusing husband.
· And what about the Abusing husband? I think even he can be a saint if he realizes that his problem is bigger than himself, if he allows the illusion of the need for control to be burst, and seeks the help he needs, from the Church or from the local community.
· I think a Saint is certainly anyone who, while thinking about taking their own life, pauses and realizes that maybe God’s mercy is greater than their struggle and who courageously decide to call a Suicide hotline, or their friends, or their parents or teachers, tell them directly what they are thinking about doing and then asked for help.
· And I think we can all be Saints when we face our own dark corners and secrets and bring them to light in a good confession to a priest, or offer them up for God to change on this, His table of sacrifice.
(B’) Once we’ve made that critical first step, that turn towards God and accept the mercy that He always—always—offers, we begin the path to holiness for which the saints are acclaimed. We learn that it was God that cleaned their hearts, allowing them the strength to take their gaze from worldly things and to see God’s grace at work in the world around them. In their poverty, he provided them a new Kingdom; in their mourning he sent those who would console them; and by His own mercy, he taught them to be merciful. And rescued from the brink of destruction and restored to new life, the Saints offered the rest of their lives sharing the mercy they themselves had received from God and inviting those who received their message to join them in praising God in his goodness. The saints invite us to realize that the God who called them and did so much for them continues to call us too. That is the legacy of the Saints.
(A’) Like all of us, the Saints started off like the two little fish. At first, they did not see the most obvious thing around them, the water—or what I’d consider God’s ever present gift of mercy and love. The Saints have grown up to become the big fish and by the grace of God have come to see the water that held them in life on earth and that continues to hold them in life in heaven. They have taken their gaze off of the sin and distraction that narrows our focus and limits our vision and looked again at God’s mercy. And by the example of their lives, and God’s promise to do with our lives what He did in theirs, the Saints continue to pose the kind of question to us that causes us to stop and reconsider something we may not yet clearly see. So each day, when the Saints swim by on our liturgical calendar, may we be blessed to hear them call out to us, “Good morning, boys and girls. How’s the water?” And may we see the water, and respond with faith; swim forward and allow our lives to become such that others will stop and reconsider something that they do not yet clearly see.
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