LOVE  LAUGHS AT LOCKSMITHS

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily is, “Love Laughs at Locksmiths.”

It’s an old English proverb. It’s also the name of an old British comic opera from around 1800. I never saw it, but reading about it once, I jotted down the title, because I thought it will be a great title for a homily someday.  It’s also the name of two short YouTube movies: one has 257 viewers and one has 16 viewers. Interesting.

“Love Laughs at Locksmiths.”

We get that image.

TODAY’S GOSPEL

Today’s gospel begins with the image of locked doors:

“On the evening of that first day of the week,
when the doors were locked,

where the disciples were,
for fear of the Jews,
Jesus came and stood in their midst
and said to them, “Peace be with you.”

God laughs at locked doors.

Jesus comes through the locked doors of the upper room – he comes through the locked doors of the disciples minds – he goes through fear and says, “Peace be with you.”

They had to be feeling various pulls of guilt and emotions – feeling stupid that they put all their trust in Jesus and he gets arrested and killed – and they ran away when he needed their presence the most.

IN EVERY PERSON

In every person – there are locked doors.

In every person there are doubts.  Like Thomas we have our doubts. That’s why he’s put in today’s gospel story.

In fact, up until recently, today was called, “Doubting Thomas Sunday.” We all have faith hesitations. We want to see and know more. Wouldn't faith be easier, if we were there in that Upper Room –way back when -  and actually experienced the Risen Christ.

Today is also called “Divine Mercy Sunday” and in every person there is also locked inside of each of us the down deep cry for Mercy - forgiveness  - hope.

Today – at this time – we also have Earth Day!  Like doubt, like faith, like the cry for mercy, the reality of our earth should help us big time with our faith. Who put the moon and Mars and the million stars in space out there? And back here on earth a beautiful ocean, mountain, sunrise, sunset, seeing cherry blossom trees in bloom, seeing a baby’s smile or an old couple walking down the street holding hands, should help us with our faith – and get us to evoke what Thomas said to the Risen Lord Jesus in today’s gospel, “My Lord and my God.”

So we have lots of stuff locked inside of us.

In every person there is also that secret, that hidden moment, that deep hurt or deep mistake or deep what have you – and we keep it in a locked safe, box, closet, and Jesus every once and a while - or we wish that every once Jesus would come to us and say, “Peace be with you.”

When we think of our past, we wish every once and a while he would come to us and open up that closet – take out that locked box – shake out its contents – lay it on the bed – and say to us, “Peace be with you.”

There was a famous old Redemptorist sermon where Jesus is pictured as a rag man or garbage collector going through neighborhoods calling out, “Any old junk you want to get rid of, here I am the Junk Collector.”

I remember stealing that image for a sermon once. I noticed it hit home. So I also stole it for one of my books. 

I had any of us standing there in the crowd listening to Jesus preach.

Then standing there deep in thought afterwards at the edge of the crowd, Jesus touches the edge of our coat and invites himself into our house for dinner.

Then after dinner, Jesus asks, “Are you going to invite me down into your basement?”

We take him down there and he asks, “What’s in that old desk in the back?”

The desk is locked and the drawers are facing the wall – and Jesus  gets us to pull the desk away from the wall – and open up the bottom drawer – and take out the book – the book with all the sins of our life – and he asks us if we want him to take it away – and then he asks us if he wants us to take away the other book.

And we nervously say, “You know about that one too?” And Jesus says with a soft smile, “Of course, everyone has both books.”

And we know this: the book that has the list of our sins and the book that has the list of the hurts against us.

Love laughs at locksmiths.

DIVINE MERCY SUNDAY

This Sunday is all about all of this. It’s called Divine Mercy Sunday – that our God is a God of mercy, forgiveness, peace.

Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of our world.

Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the guilt of our world.

Jesus is the Lamb of God – who helps us deal with the doubts of life – the here and the hereafter.

Jesus came to bring us Divine Mercy.

TWO SAINTS

This Sunday in Rome – two popes are being canonized saints.

Someone said, Pope Francis picked the canonization of both together to bring together liberals and conservatives in our church.

Will Francis be canonized some day with Benedict?

I’m sure he had that thought – or if he did, I’m sure it evoked a laugh deep within Francis.

I saw some lady on TV complaining that Pope John Paul II shouldn’t be canonized a saint because of all the child abuse by priests during his time as pope – and he could have done something or done more.

I’m sure there are some thoughts about Pope John 23 as well.

I hope everyone can have mercy and forgiveness and have the ability to laugh at times.

You know St. Teresa of Avila's prayer: 
              "From silly devotions 
               and sour-faced saints, 
               Good Lord, deliver us."

So there is sin and silliness, stupidity and sour-faced people in life.

There are mistakes. There are hurts in life. There are sins in life. People are hurt in life.

And obviously we need not just forgiveness and mercy – compassion and understanding - but we also need to take the best steps to avoid abuse and stop abuse of any kind.

But sin will continue – sorry to say – and hopefully we will continue with the mercy and the forgiveness and forgiving one another each day.

CONCLUSION

The title of my homily was, “Love Laughs At Locksmiths.”

A saint is someone in heaven. So let me close with an epitaph on the tombstone of a Puritanical Locksmith – somewhere in an English cemetery. It's dated 1637 and describes his arrival in heaven:

A zealous locksmith died of late,

And did arrive at heaven gate,

He stood without and would not knock

Because he meant to pick the lock.