April  7,  2020

SATAN  ENTERED  HIM

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this Tuesday in Holy Week is, “Satan  Entered  Him.”

Those 3 words - right there in today’s gospel – in John 13: 27 – hit me.

“Satan Entered Him.” Those words  entered into me.

That’s something that happens to us when we read strong stuff – and if a sermon has salty stuff –  we’re can be aware of what’s enlightening us – what’s challenging us - and what is entering into us.

We all have this current fear that the coronavirus 19 might enter into us.

It’s an invisible enemy  that can kill us – so we fear it – and we take precautions – to prevent it from entering us.

Is that why those 3 words in today’s gospel – ‘Satan entered him”- hit me.

INSIDE JOB

Down through the years, e.e. cummings words, “Be of love a little more careful than of anything”  has entered  into me.

I’ve have also thought, “Be of hate or hurt a little more careful than of anything.”

So too prejudice – so too anger – so too greed – so too what I’m watching on TV - so too movies - so too attitude – so too the atmosphere we can feel in  the rooms  we enter.

Without knowing it – without choice – without voting for it – we become what we read, what we see, what we eat, what we breathe in.

I love Tennyson’s words in his poem Ulysses, “I am part of all that I have met.”

We speak English because that’s the language that entered into as a kid in the playground and the playpen. “Give Little Johnny a turn.”  “Stop being such a baby!” “Wash your hands!” “Do your homework.” “Say your prayers.”

THE BAD STUFF

In a reflection for today -  in Give Us This Day -  Immaculee Ilibagiza says, “On April 7, 1994, radio stations in Rwanda transmitted a fearsome message: it was time to ‘cut the tall trees’ and eliminate the ‘cockroaches.’  Upon this signal, Hutu militia began the wholesale extermination of their Tutsi neighbors and moderate Hutus.  In the course of a hundred  days nearly a million people were killed – mostly by machetes and other primitive weapons. Many of the massacres occurred in churches, where Tutsis had sought refuge. That such horror could occur in a predominantly Catholic country raised troubling  questions about the meaning of evangelization. Nuns, priests, and catechists were among the victims. (In other cases, shockingly, they collaborated with the killers.) Church leaders, whether Catholic or Protestant, were largely mute.” [p. 96, April, 2020]

That’s tough stuff that entered into me when I read that last night.

I remember watching in shock some of that on television when it was happening. It happened again  years later when I was reading Immaculee Ilibagiza book – Left to Tell.   It’s all about this.

When – how many times – and in what ways did that attitude of anger and envy and smallness and “Kill!” enter into the psyche of some Hutus of Rwanda?

CONCLUSION:  OUR CHOSEN CALL

Our chosen call as Christians and Redemptorists  has been to bring Good News to folks – after it enters into us.

The hope is that we reach out for Christ and eat him up - as well as his whole body in communion.

The hope is that his real presence and his love and respect for all enters into all of us.

The hope is that the Word becomes flesh and consumes us.

It’s the same hope we have when we listen carefully to each other each day when we come into each other’s real presence.

It’s the same hope we have when we hear the first reading at each Mass.

Today it was from Isaiah. We read him. We listen to him. Hopefully he enters into us.  

Did you notice the two images from today’s first reading – that we become sharp swords and polished arrows.

Unlike Judas we’re not in this for the money – but for the feast!