YE  GADS!

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 5th Monday in Easter Time  is, "Ye Gads."

I was wondering if that phrase, that blurt, that exclamation, that expression, comes out of today's first reading from the Acts of the Apostles 14: 5-18 - when Paul and Barnabas heal a cripple, lame from birth. Then those who witnessed this scene thought Paul and Barnabas were gods!

QUESTIONS

"Ye Gads ...."

Have you ever heard someone use that phrase?

I looked it up on the internet and I read that it’s from  the 17^th century and it might be a polite way of avoiding saying, "Oh my God". 

I read that some people add "and little fishes" or "and little cats."

Do you have your own variation on this blurt "ye gads" - for bringing God into a tough or an emotional situation?

I know I say, "Holy cow" or I simply say, "Oh my God" or I love to jokingly say, "Oh my God I am partly sorry."

Remember that scene from the evening news about a month ago  when a Vietnamese Doctor Dao was dragged from off a plane. Out came cell phones and people caught the scene on camera.  You could hear folks blurting out the phrase, "Oh my god!"

TWO LIFE SITUATIONS: THE POSITIVE AND THE NEGATIVE

Here are two possible calls on all this: 

First of all to avoid horror stories. Avoid the negative. Avoid catastrophes. Avoid that scene from the airplane when folks will say in horror, “Oh my God.”

Secondly to accentuate the positive. 

We are made in the image and likeness of God - so when we see each other we ought to use our talents to be the best doctor, nurse, mechanic and student.  Isn’t it great to hear, “You’re a god-send.”

I think it was Chesterton who said, “Men are the million masks of God.” It’s from, The Wild Knight and Other Poems, 1900.

But now a great thing in the street 

Seems any human nod, 

Where shift in strange democracy 

The million masks of God.

                                          — GOLD LEAVES

The First Letter of John says loud and clear, “We can’t see God - but we can see each other.”  So it says,  “How can someone say, “I love God whom they can’t see and they don’t love their neighbor whom they can see.” [Cf. 1 John 4: 20-21.]

CONCLUSION

So the folks in Lystra - when they saw Paul and Barnabas - heal a man - the crowd didn’t say, “Ye Gads,” but they did think they were God.

So we show people who God is when we are like God. Amen.