GOD SNEAKS IN EVERY TIME

The title of my homily is, “God Sneaks In Every Time.”

That was the title of a homily I gave  at St. Mary’s on September 11, 2002 or 2003 at a Mass for our High School Kids - out on our lawn in the Carrol Gardens.

If any of you are worried about your kids - if they dropped out of church and the faith, be at  peace, “God Sneaks in Every Time.”

If your kids or family members don’t go to church for any reason - relax. Simply say, “God sneaks in every time.”

I told the following story that September 11^th: I had gone to a wedding of a relative in New York City a year before September 11^th, 2001.  It was a cousin’s daughter.  She didn’t want any religion or anything Irish at her wedding - so too the man she was marrying - who was Jewish. He didn’t want any religion or mention of God or what have you at their wedding either.

So I was just going to the wedding - as family. I was doing no priestly stuff.

The wedding was at the National Arts Club - 15 Gramercy Park South  in Manhattan, New York City.  We went because it was family.  We sat in the middle of the room.  My two sisters and my brother-in-law - and some other family members had filled up a row. So I went into the row - in front of them.

I sit down. Surprise!  Next to me is a priest. We shook hands - but I didn’t really get his name - and probably vice versa.

He knew my cousin - the father of the bride.  The wedding was short. A justice of the peace or someone officiated. They had a few readings - nothing officially from the Bible. One reading was Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s 43 Sonnet, “How Do I Love You, let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height / My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight / For the ends of being and ideal grace. / I love thee to the level of every day's / Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. / I love thee freely, as men strive for right.”

Surprise they picked from an anthology the reading we hear at every other church wedding. It’s from 1^st Corinthians. “Love is patient, love is kind, etc. etc. etc.” Now,  there is no mention of God in that section of Paul’s Letter to the Corinthians - but in this excerpt from an anthology of love poems  God was mentioned. 

I didn’t notice this, but the priest next to me did. He elbows me and says, “God sneaks in every time.”

I found out after the wedding from my cousin that the priest next to me were good friends. My cousin had talked to the priest that he was upset there would be no God - and no religion as part of his daughter’s wedding.

End of that story…. Life goes on….

After the 4 plane hijackings on September 11, 2001, my sister Mary  calls me and says that the priest in front of them and next to me at that wedding was Father Mychal Judge.

God snook into the horror of that day big time with all the stories of acts of bravery by fire fighters and so many first responders.  People prayed big time that weekend.

Father Mychal Judge’s life was written up and spoken about. The newspaper stories and TV accounts told about all the work he did with the poor - with folks who had AIDS - with gays - with alcoholics - and on and on and on.

Those who heard all this heard about a man of God who was very human and who put every other person first.  Mychal  Judge was not the first person who died that day, but he was the first one checked out by the coroner and listed as Victim 0001.

So I was happy to know a priest who did great priestly work that day.

We also lost a cousin September 11, 2001. He was my God-father’s grandson, Shawn Bowman. I found out later that a fireman, the husband of a cousin of mine, whose marriage I had done, was one of the fireman who carried Father Mychal  Judge’s body across the street to St. Peter’s Church and they laid his body on the main altar.

Father Mychal Judge had said, "God is not an obligation or burden. God is the joy of my life!" 

Lucky for me he, God and life slid into my life that day in a new way.

I went to a non-descript wedding and I experienced God in that moment and the scary September 11 moment in New York City.

God sneaks in every time.