AWESOME

INTRODUCTION 

The  title  of my homily for this Graduation Mass for the St. Mary’s High School Class of 2015 is, “Awesome.”

Ginny sent me an e-mail with the readings to reflect upon for this Mass. She added that the theme for this Graduation Mass is the ongoing theme: “You are never alone - I have awesome plans for you.”

Let me repeat that. Hear God saying right now, “You are never alone - I have awesome plans for you.”

The first reading from Jeremiah 29:11-14 begins with the message that God has plans for us. The second reading from a  Letter of St. Paul to the Philippians 4:13-19 has Paul  saying, “I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” And when we do with our lives God’s plans we are salt and light to those who experience us - as today's gospel reading puts it -Matthew 5:13-16.

Awesome!

I thought about this and decided to think out loud about the feeling called, “Awe.”

We’ve all experienced some awe in our lives.  

Awesome.

Awe: it contains amazement, some fear, some tremble. It contains wonder and surprise - beauty and the spectacular.

It’s a roller coaster of a word. It’s a roller coaster of a feeling.

How many times have we heard some little kid say, “Awesome”?

How many people in Annapolis said yesterday as they looked up into the sky and saw the Blue Angels, “Awesome”?

Billy Chrystal in his movie Cowboy Slickers talks about the first time a little kid goes to a Major League baseball game. His was Yankee Stadium with his dad. Mine would be with my dad, Ebbet’s Field, 1947. Jackie Robinson had just been brought up to the Major Leagues. In his experience Billy Chrystal said he was all eyes - all ears - going into the stadium. He handed his ticket to the collector. He and his dad walk and walk inside in the belly of the stadium. They finally come to the moment they are going up a ramp. They start to see the light of day - the crowds - the players practicing. Then this little kid sees the green, green grass and rich brown dirt infield of Yankee Stadium.  

For some of you it was Camden Yards.

Awesome.

It’s could also be the same feeling at one’s firsts Ravens or Redskin game.

Awesome.

It could be the same at a birthday party or going into Disneyworld or 6 Flags or the first time one goes on a plane and we look out the side window and start to feel sky. It could be the first time getting on a horse or a roller coaster. It could be getting on a mule and heading down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon.

The short 3 letter word “awe” is an automatic mouth opener. It's also an eye opener - as well as an amazement opener.

Awe.

Graduation … going to college … the next step … falling in love … getting married … having a baby … seeing one’s kid reading, writing, saying his or her’s first word … first prayer before going to bed - before meals -  going to school …. making his or her First Communion - graduating from K-school, Elementary school - high school - graduation - going off to college - and on and on and on. All are awesome moments -- and on and on and on.

School - life - education - great teachers - a great book - a great trip - a great concert - a great game - all hopefully are eye openers - mind openers - mouth openers.

Awesome! Could everyone here say “Awesome!”

Could you say “Awesome” again - but this time feel what your mouth is doing and how it ends up.

Open up your mouth as the doctor or the dentist tell us and say, “Ah!”

Then open up your mouth and say, “Awe” and again sense and feel where and what your mouth is doing.

It’s opening.

The bore - the kid - the old person - not open to new life - has a closed mind and a closed mouth and a closed “awe”.

Bummer.

The person who is salt and light to every situation - is the person who is still in the school of life.

When I was a kid in Brooklyn we went on a class trip to the Hayden Planetarium in New York. We sat there in this round theater. We looked at this gigantic machine - in the shape of a 3 dimensional 8 - with holes - metal acne on its skin, with lights shining out of every one of those openings - light that  put stars, planets, galaxies on the ceiling. Then we heard a voice and an arrow telling us what they were. It was an awesome moment - much more exciting than any moment in any classroom.

Awe!

Then there was a moment when I was older in the Rocky Mountains in Colorado - in the night - in a clear dark night - 4 of us lay there on the ground in sleeping bags looking up at a star studded sky - awesome - much more than what we saw in Hayden’s Planetarium in New York. 

There is nothing like the real thing.

If you only get to page 1 - in the Bible - if you only read the first chapter of the first book, Genesis, meaning “Beginnings” - if you only memorize one verse from the Bible - remember, say, mean, these 7 words, “And God saw that it was good.”

See everything. Appreciate everything. See that all that God makes is good. It’s awesome. And when we make things - and when we walk around - see that all is awesome. A chocolate milkshake at Chick and Ruth’s - a Reuben sandwich on Houston Street in New York City, a concert by the Philadelphia Philharmonic Orchestra, the Amazon river in Brazil, a little kids first step and all clap, the subway in Stockholm, Sweden, etc. etc. etc.

When you’re sitting in some quiet moment - with a computer or laptop or iPhone type into Google, Sainte-Chapel Paris.

It opened up again yesterday - May 20 -  after 7 to 10 years of repair and restoration.  Instead of those lead lines - between the thousands and thousands of pieces of stained glass - is a transparent new glue. It helps make the light and the colors even more awesome. This chapel in the heart of Paris was built way back around 1250 - and contained the most important relics from Christ’s Death in the world. The Crown of Thorns was #1.  Whether they are the real relics is not the issue. People thought they were. And this was all seen in a spectacular setting.

What would it be like to be in that chapel in Paris this Sunday - Pentecost Sunday - for Mass and for a concert? Awesome.

What is awesome is the place. Check it out on Google. Like me seeing the stars in Hayden’s Planetarium in New York and then seeing the stars in the mountains in Colorado, see it yourself  before you die.

Or go into this church or any church - and realize you’re in an awesome place.  We believe we’re in the presence of Christ.  Awesome.

Also take a good look at the crucifix - on the wall here - facing us. Life has its crosses as well. Sometimes life is also awful. So this church is telling us that Christ is also with us when we’re on the cross - as well as in our daily bread.

The title of my homily is, Awesome.

If there is one word I hope someone will say about me and about you at your funeral it’s this: He saw the world as good. Better: awesome.

And when we get into heaven - you heard it here: It will be awesome.

If you haven’t started yet: start now - graduate to awesomeness.

We are all called to an awesome future.