May  3,  2020

GO  FIGURE! 

TWO FIGURES FOR GOD AND PRIEST 

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily is, “Go Figure!  Two Figures for God and Priest.”

TODAY’S READINGS

In today’s readings I noticed the image and metaphor of sheep and shepherd – in the gospel –in the second reading – and in the Psalm and Psalm response.

In today’s gospel from John I noticed this sentence: “Although Jesus used this figure of speech, the Pharisees did not realize what he was trying to tell them.”

To me - life is about a lot of “Go figuring”. 

To me - life is about transfiguration.

To me - life is about discovering who and what our models are – as we try to figure out life.

To me - life is thinking about what the key models and metaphors of life are – or ones that grab me and make sense to me.

We are made in image and likeness of God.

Now that’s difficult, so we figure that out with metaphors and images.

TOM BARRETT STORY – BECOMING A PRIEST

While working with Tom Barrett he once told the story of why we became a priest. 

He was at the OLPH novena at OLPH, Brooklyn – on a Wednesday – as an altar boy – and while watching one of the Redemptorists preaching and doing the Novena – he said, “I was following the priest and I said to myself, ‘I like what he was doing.’  Next I said, ‘I would like to do that.’  Next I said, ‘I could do that.’  Lastly I said, ‘I am going to do that.’”

His story went something like that.

It triggered in me a series of questions.  I too was an altar boy at OLPH. Where and when and why did the idea of becoming a priest someday hit me?  Why did I join the vocation club?  That meant meeting and studying Latin with Mr. Paul Peters – using Schultz’s grammar. Was it seeing Fathers  Rudy Egan and Phil Cabasino and other Redemptorists?

Were they a model on how to do life?

METAPHORS

Yesterday, when working on this homily,  when it came to the metaphors and images I was thinking of – on figuring out what a priest does – the image of priest as leaving the United States to become a Redemptorist Missionary was significant. Tom had seen Redemptorists preaching in our parish. I had seen Redemptorist priests coming into our classroom and telling us about their life in the jungles of Brazil.  That hit me – especially when I saw a Redemptorist Missionary Vocation brochure.  It showed a Redemptorist on a horse. How about that?   Wouldn’t that impact a lot of kids?

I also liked the metaphor of a priest as missionary from The Field Afar, the Maryknoll magazine.

In the novitiate I read Thunder in the Distance, the life of Pere Lebbe, the Belgian Vincentian 3 times. He worked as a missionary in China.  I read it again in Esopus, in our Major Seminary days. It certainly gave me a model and a metaphor for being a priest.

As I said, “Life is a go figure experience.”

At Esopus – the place of our major seminary - two models for God hit me.

The first was  God as Good Shepherd. Today’s gospel and today’s Psalm triggered that image for me. But at Esopus the image of God and Christ as the Good Shepherd didn’t come as words.  It was  on the tabernacle door: the Good Shepherd. That hit me.  To me it was the most central image in that chapel.  Being there for 14 years of my life – 6 years as a seminarian [1960-1966] and 8 years as a novice master [1985-1993], I saw many contenders for central image in that chapel. 

For many it was the worn step at the OLPH shrine – where thousands of future Redemptorists knelt to say a prayer.

For many it was the big mural painting over the chapel door – which would only be seen on the way out.  It featured Christ standing there and sending his disciples out into the whole world.

For me it was Good Shepherd on the tabernacle door– as model and metaphor for who and what God is.

The second metaphor and model for Christ, for God, was  reservoir. It was not a painting or an image – but more an inner image of a big reservoir. 

It hit me at Esopus that  the priest was not only a shepherd – Luke 15 becoming the central chapter and center of Luke and of Christ  - but also a reservoir – so the need to pray  to get filled.  The chapel, the library, the classroom were filling me – the trickle of thought and figuring coming into me – slowly and steadily – thoughts melting in me – thoughts becoming me.

I became clearer about the image of shepherd  than the reservoir – my first time at Esopus – but the reservoir image became me from 1960-66.

Years later, while at Lima, Ohio for 8 ½ years I saw actual reservoirs. Denis Sweeney introduced me to 3 big reservoirs – but mainly one of them – a mile around.  They were perfect for walking around them – on top of the big dirt walls that cupped the water.  The path on top was 10 yards wide at least.   Denis would run around it – and I would walk it.  He only beat me once – in going around the top – 2 times to my one time.

In those many walks – there were lots of weeks – we were not out on the road – June – Summer – July – August. I drank in the image of the priest and God as a reservoir.

In my life, I had been by a Lake in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin,  hills in Tobyhanna, Pennsylvania,  the Hudson at Esopus, the ocean at West End,  the main two images  were still God and the priest as Shepherd and Reservoir.

One is going out – like the missionary  and one is standing still like the reservoir.

I saw shepherds in Scala, Italy – where I was for a week. They would come through the tiny town every afternoon. They were the ones whom St. Alphonsus, our founder, met when he was down on the Amalfi Coast recovering from an overwork breakdown.  I also saw a shepherd on the road from Jericho up to Jerusalem.

But I got to know shepherds first in my imagination.

That’s also true for reservoir.

TWO  TALKS  THAT DEVELOPED THESE TWO IMAGES A BIT DEEPER.

Looking back into my life, “go figuring my life,”  yesterday, I thought of two talks in which I heard speakers talk about these 2 models, metaphors and figures – not my way – but in a way I tailored for my figuring life out.

One speaker underlined,  yellow marked, highlighted the 3 stories in Luke 15.  The speaker said in the Good Shepherd story and the Woman looking for the Lost coin story, God is on the move – searching and finding.  We do that as priest.  In the 3^rd story, that of the prodigal son, God waits.

In the second talk, a nun in the Internovitiate Program at Ossining, New York said there at 2 images in spirituality;  the road and the rocking chair.

She said 90 + percent of spiritualities talk about the road, the way, the path, the ladder, the climb, the steps.  Less than 10 percent – especially in Western Spiritualities, it’s the waiting, the sitting, the rocking chair on the porch.

But there they are:  the priest as shepherd on the road looking for lost sheep and the priest as listener, the wisdom figure, the preacher, the story teller, sitting there as reservoir – giving cold glasses of cool water to the thirsty.

I see a retreat house as a reservoir – I spent many years of my life here at San Alfonso – and St. Alphonsus Retreat house in the Poconos – Tobyhanna, Pennsylvania.

I see the Redemptorist Missionary as the shepherd – hitting the road – in search of stray and lost sheep.

God is both shepherd and reservoir.

A priest is both shepherd and reservoir.

CONCLUSION

Go figure what this priest was talking about today.