IS  ANYTHING  SACRED

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 21 Wednesday in Ordinary time is, “Is Anything Sacred?”

We were watching NCIS last evening. It was a rerun.

Gibbs disappeared - and they looked everywhere - till they discovered he had gone undercover for an old, old case. He had spotted someone from way back while looking out the window of the diner he often goes to.

Quinn and Bishop [?] are checking his house - to see if he was there - but they had no luck. 

However, Quinn broke a plate. Bishop said he can always get another one.

She could only see the underside of the plate - so Quinn said to her, “Not this plate.”  It was a plate that Gibbs’ little girl made  when she was in the 3^rd grade and made it for her parents.  It had a kids drawing and writing on it.

The plate was sacred. The plate was special. The plate was unique.

HOUSTON FLOODING

We were also watching the evening news - earlier - and there were all kinds of scenes showing people with plastic bags getting into boats - heading for higher ground.

Imagine all the sacred photos, knickknacks, afghans from grandmothers, that people grabbed as the water was rising?

They were grabbing what they cherished as sacred.

ANY HOUSE

If you went into any house, any room of any person, and you would find out that everyone has their sacred treasures - that connect us to each other - often to people long gone.

What are your sacred items?

They are unique to every person. They are special to every person.

The title of my homily is, “Is Anything Sacred?”

If I can get a person to state that some object that they own is precious, sacred, unique, then I can point out an important teaching.

The message is this: we are the ones who consecrate the object.

We are the ones who make an object sacred.

Then I can jump to places. We all have sacred places - like where we proposed marriage to someone.

Then I can jump to people. We are the ones who name another person as sacred. That’s why we cry at a loved one’s loss.

That naming is stamping another person, place or thing - with sacredness and the naming is invisible.

YESTERDAY - A WEDDING ANNIVERSARY

Yesterday - after the Mass here for the juniors - I was standing in the back of this church - waiting to say goodbye to as many kids as possible - to wish them a good day and a good new year here at St. Mary’s.

A man walked in before the kids started down the aisle. He held up his cellphone to take a picture. I said, “If you can wait for 5 minutes, all the kids will be out and you can take a picture of the sanctuary up close.

The man said to me, “Today is our wedding anniversary. My wife and I were married here at St. Mary’s 19 years ago today.

Not all days are the same. Some days are more sacred than others.

The man told me that his wife and their 2 teenagers are over in Ireland for a 2 week vacation. He said he couldn’t go - but he would stay home with Mollie their little kid. Their little girl would cut down on the mobility of the 3 to so some neat traveling. He convinced his wife and Mollie that he would take Mollie to see Great Adventure - and be in Switzerland, Germany, France and Britain.

So I walked up front with the man and had his phone ready for the picture when Ginny said, “Let me take the picture. It’s not your talent.”

The guy stood there where couples stand every Saturday at a wedding. He took off his wedding ring and pointed it to the camera - and he said, “I’ll send this picture right to my wife in Ireland.”

It was a sacred moment.  It was in a sacred place. The guy wanted to share that moment - their day - with each other - in a unique way.

CEMETERIES

What triggered this thought for today was the first part of today’s gospel - Matthew 23: 27-28.  Listen to it again.

A reading from the holy Gospel according to Matthew

Jesus said, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You are like whitewashed tombs, which appear beautiful on the outside, but inside are full of dead men's bones and every kind of filth. Even so, on the outside you appear righteous, but inside you are filled with hypocrisy and evildoing.

The Gospel of the Lord

Jesus must have been standing there and he spotted some Pharisees strutting - to make themselves  look better than others. Then he looked over his shoulders and spotted a cemetery - with it’s beautiful whitewashed tombs - but underneath there was the smell of death.

SACRED OBJECTS

I looked around my room and with this box I gathered a few sacred objects from my room.

Here is a porcelain cross that a little girl named Harper game me 3 weeks ago. She and her family life in London, but she wanted to make her first holy communion here in this parish. By this request - by this behavior - she’s telling me that she senses the sacredness of this place.

Here is a lapel pen - that has the fleur-de-ly on it. It looks just like the fleur-de-ly  lapel pins  from our parish. I put it on my suit jacket. Some little tiny kid came up to me after Sunday Mass and handed it to me. His parents said the family was in New Orleans  and they saw this New Orleans Saint lapel pin is the same as they have in St. Mary’s. Then he added, “And I want to buy this for Father Andy.”

That was at least 3 years ago. That’s how things and moments become sacred.

Next - about a month ago someone handed me a plastic bag of photographs and stuff from my sister who had died two and a half years ago.

Inside I found this envelope and on the outside it said, “Ring.”  Well I opened up the envelope and there it was, the Claddagh ring my sister Peggy, a nun, wore most of her life.

There is a world of difference between a Claddagh ring in a jewelry store than one that was on a person’s finger for most of her life as a nun.

Next - here is a small plastic bottle of prescription pills. It has an expiration date of September 1988. [SHAKE BOTTLE]. Now when I die someone will toss this out along with my prescriptions.

But this little bottle of cancer pills  was my brothers and when he died I took this out of the medical cabinet in his bathroom. [SHAKE IT]. It is sacred to me when he died of cancer at 51 years of age.

Notice this watch I’m wearing. It’s a Rolex. I met a man with a gold Rolex watch the other night. It was worth 25,000. Mine is $37 dollars. It’s fake - but it has more meaning to me than the $25,000 Rolex - which I had asked him to wear for 10 seconds.  Mine was lighter.

Which one is more valuable?

What would make a watch invaluable?

CONCLUSION

The title of my homily was, “Is Anything Sacred?”

My thought is: “Check everyone - and we will find out - ‘Everyone has some things they find sacred.’”

Then build on that and realize: Besides sacred things we all have our sacred places and persons.”

Building on that: pause before anyone thrashing or hurting another - or someone’s sacred places  - but especially another.