YOU’RE AN ANGEL

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this September 29th feast day of Michael, Gabriel and Raphael, Archangels is, “You’re an Angel!”

Has anyone ever said to you, “You’re an angel!”

Did anyone ever call you an angel?

THEY DIDN’T MEAN

I am sure they didn’t mean you have wings and you fly around wearing long white floating garments.

However, I did have a wedding three Saturday’s ago when 2 flower girls came down the aisle at St. Mary’s Church wearing wings. They were dressed as angels. And I’m sure someone without thinking said to the littlest one, “You’re an angel!” or to the older one, “You’re an angel for getting your little sister to come down the aisle with you – because she was so scared.”

THEY DID MEAN

I would assume when someone says to us, “You’re an Angel!” they mean we saved them. We helped them big time. We did something good to them.

For example, someone is trying to open a door and they have 5 packages – and we step in and help them – and they say to us, “You’re an angel. Thanks.”

And all of us have seen a dozen times the movie, It's A Wonderful Life. In order for Clarence to get his wings, to become a full fledged angel, he has to help someone. And movies and TV programs about angels ever since present angels as helpers - saving people from a problem.

TODAY’S FEAST

Today’s feast is that of the three archangels: Michael, Gabriel and Raphael. On October 2nd we celebrate the feast of the Guardian Angels. I think that’s all the angel feast days of the Church year.

Catholic Theology states that angels are these creations of God – unique spirits without bodies – that praise God and go about doing good. Now some of these beings, these “forces”, are given names. Most are just called “angels”. The 3 for today – Michael, Gabriel and Raphael – are found in Scriptures – by name.

Then there was the great angel, Lucifer – who fell. This fact, indicates they have intellectual powers – or free will. After that we don’t know much or enough about angels.

They are invisible. But just as we picture God – who is invisible – we picture angels.

Because they are messengers – they are pictured with wings – and so that's the way they are often sculpted. We see them that way in art work all through the middle east and middle ages. Just go into any “old” Roman Catholic church building and you’ll see pictures of angels in stained glass windows – and other pictures and statues. I counted them here in St. Mary’s. They can be seen everywhere.

In reality, I don’t go with the physical wings and stuff – because people have enough trouble believing in God.

However, they are worth studying – and pondering – and the question sits there: “Are we missing something since the Enlightenment – when angels seemed to fly out the window?” What was the world like in the Middle Ages and earlier ages? Did people picture Guardian Angels hovering on people’s shoulders – protecting them? Did they picture millions of angels on the head of a pin – in theology classrooms? Did they feel like they were joining a multitude of heavenly angels at each Mass – especially at the Sanctus, the Holy, Holy, Holy? Did they picture a great ladder – as indicated in the gospel for today – Christ as Ladder – with angels coming up and down from heaven to earth on him? [John 1: 51] What was life like with a sense of angels and demons at one’s door?

MESSENGERS

Yet, what I would stress about angels that they are God’s servants. They are God’s messengers. That’s their calling.

And that’s our calling – and when we fulfill that call, sometimes people might say to us, “You’re an angel.”

A key would be to concentrate on the message we’re called to deliver in the places we visit each day. So the stress would be the message not the messenger – as in the old saying, “Don’t kill the messenger!”

What is the message? What is God’s message that he sends us to be messengers of? Answer: “Take and read! Take and read.” If we read the scriptures we can hear God telling us to love one another – and giving various other best practices to go about doing.

Sometimes I picture angels as inspirations – with wings – that is, messages with wings – flying through the world – and into our consciousness. After all there are all these other invisible messages in the air – energy – radio waves – whatever it is that goes through the world wireless – and we have to turn on some gadget to receive them.

I also picture temptations as messages that fly around and sometimes we hear them and then we have the challenge to resist them and to pray, “Lead us not into temptation.”

THESE 3 SPECIFIC ANGELS

Michael’s message is to be like God – because that is what his name means from the Hebrew.

I prefer war to peace – so I would prefer picturing Michael as a being who loves compared to the being who fights. However, in the literature, Michael is usually the angel who is pictured with a sword in hand fighting dragons and demons.

I’ve also wondered why do cult like groups – doomsday like groups – feature Michael in their camp. They often voice revelations of Michael fighting and killing the enemy?

I would think – if we really need an advocate and an angel – pray to Michael the archangel. Other Christian communities – other than Catholics – prefer to stick with Jesus himself or the Spirit and not Mary, the Saints or the Angels.

Gabriel name means “the strength of God”. Obviously, once more, we would all like to have God’s strength and bring that strength to others.

In the New Testament Gabriel is pictured as the messenger who comes to Mary with the announcement that God wants her to bring a Son into the world. And Mary has the strength to say yes. [Confer Luke 1: 26-38; Daniel 8: 15-27]

And Raphael is the angel who heals – as we see in the Book of Tobit. I see the message that our call is to be peacemakers – healers – of those around us. “Rophe” is the Hebrew word for a medical doctor. [Confer Tobit 5: 5 to 12:22]

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Sketch on top: This is the work of Gustave Dore (1832-1883) in an illustrated book of Dante's Paradiso. This is a scene from Canto 31 - Rosa Celeste - in which we see Dante and Beatrice gazing up into the highest heavens: The Empyrean.

Check the Catechism of the Catholic Church # 328- 336 for much clearer details and dogma on the angels.

DEALING  WITH  CRITICISM

Quote for the Day - September 29, 2010


"If I were to read,
much less answer,
all the attacks made on me,
this shop might as well
be closed for any other business.
I do the very best I know how -
the very best I can;
and I mean to keep doing so
until the end.
If the end brings me out all right,
what is said against me
won't amount to anything.
If the end brings me out wrong,
ten angels swearing I was right
would make no difference."



Abraham Lincoln - converstation at the White House. From Fracis B. Carpenter, Six Months at the While House with Abraham Lincoln [1866]

THE WHY QUESTION

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 26th Tuesday in Ordinary Time is, “The Why Question.”

One of the most basic human tendencies and things we do is to ask, “The Why Question.”

SHORT DIALOGUE

“Why?”

“Well, because we want to know.”

“Well, why do you want to know – or why do you have to know?”

“I don’t know why – but I just want to know why you are talking about this.”

“Well, because I think it’s a key question.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I don’t want to answer that.”

“Why?”

“Well, because I don’t really know the answer or I don’t have the answer yet.”

“Why not?”

“Well, because I don’t have the time to answer right now.”

“Well, because I don’t want to answer the question.”

“Well because to be honest, I might lose something by answering: power, influence, a job or something I’m not sure about, but I sense by answering I see an inkling of loss of control.”

TWO POETS

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), the British Poet, said the why question was one of my 6 great servants – 6 servants who taught him all that he learned: “What, Why, When, How, Where, Who?” (1)

Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892), another British Poet, wrote a poem in 1854 which we’re all familiar with from our school days – because it was one of those poems we memorized, “The Charge of the Light Brigade.” In it he voices the questions, the thoughts, the screams, the why, of all those who lost loved ones in war:

“Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die.” (2)

This brigade was taught not to question – but to just do what they were told to do. It’s the so called, “Blind obedience.” And so they charged right into their death without asking, “Why are we doing this?”

The why question can save lives.

The why question can save time.

Thy why question can save stupidity.

The why question takes time – but in the long run, it can save time and lives.

The why question can hurt – be painful – and it can also challenge.

BOBBY KENNEDY

We might remember Ted Kennedy quoting George Bernard Shaw’s [1856- 1950] words at his eulogy for his brother at Robert’s funeral at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, June 8, 1968, “You see things; and you say, ‘Why?’’ But I dream things that never were,; and I say, ‘Why not?’” (3)

TODAY’S FIRST READING

In today’s first reading Job asked the big why question: “Why was I born?” (Job 3: 3)

It’s the first question in the Old Catechism: “Why did God make me?”

Tough stuff. Job lost everything and he wants to know why didn’t he die when he was born.

Did you notice the 2 other why questions. The first concerns work – toil. Have we ever asked in the middle of an overload of work, “Why me God, why me?” The second question I find ever stronger: “Why did you give life to those who are bitter in spirit.” Haven’t we all asked that why question many times – especially when we’re dealing with depressives or whiners or very unhappy people?” [Job 3:20]

TODAY’S GOSPEL

In today’s gospel [Luke 9: 51-56] we have the continuation of Jesus’ words about his destiny: Jerusalem. It was on that hill outside of Jerusalem he’ll scream out a great why question, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” [Matthew 27: 46]

CONCLUSIONS

The why question gets us to pray.

That question mark is a great hook.

The why question gets us to talk to each other.

The why question gets us to some great talking to ourselves and hopefully to God. Amen.




Picture on Top, “The Charge of the Light Brigade” – 1855 – by William Simpson. The Russian commanders seeing the British charging thought they must be drunk. Of the 600, 118 were killed; 127 wounded; 60 were taken prisoner.

(1) Cf. Rudyard Kipling, The Elephant’s Child, in “The Just-So Stories” [1902]

(2) Cf. Alfred Lord Tennyson, "The Charge of the Light Brigade", 1854, stanza 1. A poem about the Battle of Balaclava, in the Crimean War, October 25, 1854

(3) George Bernard Shaw [1856-1950] says those words in Back to Methuselah. pt. 1, Act 1

WHEN TO SPEAK

Quote for the Day - September 28, 2010


"Don't talk unless you can improve the silence."


Vermont Proverb

STOP TO THINK

Quote for the Day - September 27, 2010

"It's hard to think at the top."

Stringfellow Barr [1888-1974] While teaching at St. John's here in Annapolis he helped develop the Great Books Program and Curriculum. He also taught at University of Virginia and Rutgers.

TWO BROTHERS

[This is a homily story for the 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C. It's an attempt to bring the theme of not noticing Lazarus at our door indoors - into the family. We're all aware, hopefully, of some to the poor at our door - but since I was talking to young people at the Kids Mass and then our Teen Mass, I decided to go this way - to bring the story closer to home. The gospel reading is the story of Lazarus at the door in Luke 16: 19-31. So here's a story entited, "Two Brothers".]
There were two brothers. There were no others. They were an older brother and a younger brother – and okay – a mom and a dad – and grandparents, and neighbors and friends – but this story is mainly about two brothers. Such combinations exist in real life and in story. Like, “Once upon a time there were two sisters ….” but this story is about two brothers.

The older brother never really noticed the younger brother. Now of course, they were together in the same house – and on the same couch at times – and at the same table – and in the same car at times – but the older brother never acknowledged his younger brother. The younger brother was like the battery in the car – never really noticed until it dies.

In this story everyone loved the older brother. He would do anything for you – like you could call him up to pick up something on his way home from school or his job at a restaurant where he worked as a bus boy or “dish picker upper”. He’d do it. Never complained. He emptied the dish washer and took out the garbage without anyone having to ask him to. He was a good kid. Yet, there was one person he never did anything for: his younger brother.

The older brother would pat the dog – talk to his dad or mom – sometimes late at night – sometimes with his mom – sometimes with his dad – just sitting there at the kitchen table – doing nothing but talking and laughing. The older brother would drop in and see his grandparents – but he never noticed that he never noticed his younger brother.

These things happen. We can be blind – without knowing we’re blind – when it comes to certain people – sometimes someone in our own home whom we just don’t notice or interact with in any big way – as was what was happening in this story.

The younger brother was also very friendly – not as extraverted as his brother – but he was always there – doing younger brother stuff – and he kept on trying to reach out to his older brother. He’d say, “Hello” and “Hi” and this and that, but no – there really was no recognition ever. They didn’t fight and wrestle as most brothers do. They just lived there in the same house – an older brother never really noticing a younger brother.

Now this was strange – subtle – and unfortunate. And nobody really noticed it – except the younger brother. It wasn’t a dramatic “dissing” or dismissal or hatred of his younger brother. It was as this story unfolds – a nothing going on between two people – too bad.

Then something really sad and bad happened. The younger brother, Joshua, (did I tell you his name yet?), died at the age of 15. He was on his bike coming home from a baseball game – and this car – filled with teenagers ran a red light – swerved to miss another car – and hit and killed the younger brother. The 18 year old driver had been drinking – along with the 4 other kids in the car as well.

It was only then that the older brother, Jack, really realized he had a younger brother. The funeral was very painful. The next two weeks, two months, two years without their second son – without the younger brother – would prove to be a very tough time – for mom and dad and older brother – as well as grandparents, neighbors, teachers, coaches, classmates and friends.

About two and a half months after the funeral – the older brother was alone – at home – for a weekend. Mom and dad had a college class reunion in Wisconsin. That’s where they met 24 years ago. Now mom and dad were hesitant to leave the older brother home alone – now their only son – but he said, “Mom, Dad, go. I know how much you were looking forward to seeing your old friends. So please go. You two need to get out of the house for a weekend. Josh’s death is still weighing heavy on all of us. It’s been tough, really tough, so take a break. Get away. And relax about me. I’m a senior in high school now – and next year I’ll be in college – and I’ll be okay – and relax, I won’t have any wild parties and this and that.” So with that guarantee, and the trust they had in their son, Jack, mom and dad headed to the airport and a trip back to Wisconsin – for their 20th college class reunion – and a four day weekend.

Saturday morning the older brother went by his younger brother’s room. The door was closed. It had been that way since his death. Jack had gone by that door hundreds of times – but this time something hit him to go in and look around.

When nobody’s around, sometimes some people, look around.

They had always had separate rooms. Dad had a great job and then when they started school mom also got a great job. Money was no problem – so they had a pretty big house – and both boys always had their own rooms.

Nobody had gone into his room till now – except mom and dad when they went in there and into his closet to get his dark blue suit and a light blue shirt and a few other things for the funeral. That was it.

The room had a strange feeling. Obviously ….

Jack stood at the door and scanned the semi-darkness. Then he went over to the window and pulled the curtains open. It was a cold, clear day outside. He looked around the room. Everything was clean and neat. He saw his brother’s football posters. Joshua was a Giants’ fan – so there was Eli Manning - # 10 – in a big poster picture on his bedroom wall. Then surprise – Jack saw a picture of himself on a cork board above his brother’s computer. There he was in his Redskins jersey. Interesting. Both teams were not having a good year. He scratched his head. He couldn’t believe it. His younger brother had a picture of him the older brother right there at his desk above his computer.

“Wow!” he whispered.

Next he sat down and turned on his brother’s computer. Then when he came to the password – he realized this was as far as he could go. He shut off the computer and went downstairs – wondering what he was going to do for the day. He figured he’d probably call a few friends and do something interesting.

As he sat there in the kitchen the word “hacker” hit him. He got up immediately and went back upstairs to his brother’s computer. He figured he could hack his way into his brother’s computer – by figuring out the password.

He tried his brother’s first name first: Joshua. Nope no luck. Then his second name: Dylan. Nope. Then JD. Nope. Then Eli – then Eli Manning. Then Eli Manning 10. Nope. He tried a hundred more possible passwords. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. None worked.

He stayed at it for about an hour. No luck.

He went downstairs for lunch – but quickly went back upstairs with a sandwich. 12 o’clock. 1 o’clock…. No luck.

It became an obsession. Then out of sheer frustration he typed in his own name and surprise the computer opened. He was his brother’s password. Strange. Very strange.

And very nervously – with guilt – the guilt one feels when one is eavesdropping on other people’s conversations – or checking other people’s stuff. It was a basic human “No! No!” that haunted him. He found himself pausing and then asking himself, “Should I be doing this?”

Then he saw it – a file – a document – called, “Two Brothers.”

He opened it up and started reading it. He wondered what it was. An essay – a story – maybe something for school…? He wasn’t sure. He didn’t know.

He was hearing as he read his brother’s words – a voice from the dead – a voice from almost three months ago.

He read:

Two Brothers…. Their names were Jack and Joshua – ages 17 and 15…. They got along with each other all through the years, but neither really knew the other.

Me? I’m the younger brother – in a family of four – mom, dad, Jack and myself.

I’m the younger brother – always have been – always will be.

We were at church two weeks ago and the Sunday gospel story was about two brothers: a younger brother and an older brother. I listened up – because that’s us – and it seems that the two brothers never talked to each other. That’s us.

I wonder if the older brother at the end of Jesus’ story ever came into the house at his father’s insistence – and began talking to his brother and welcoming him home.

I wonder if we brothers will ever really talk to each other – like after Jack comes home from college – after he goes away to college and all that – like I see dad and his brother always talking big time when they see each other.

The priest in his sermon talked about forgiveness – and how it must kill fathers when their sons are separated – and not on speaking terms with each other. I sat there in church wondering what the older brother thought about after his younger brother left home way. In the story Jesus told we find out what the older brother thought the younger brother was doing. I wonder how he knew. This was way before cell phones and all that. I wonder what my older brother Jack thinks about me. So many times it seems like probably nothing. It seems he always behaves as if he’s an only child. I wonder if that is part of being the first child or what have you. I don’t know.
Jack stopped at that – and began crying – crying – all alone in that big house that Saturday afternoon.

He stood up and walked around. He went downstairs. Then he came back upstairs again. He read some more from his brother’s essay or story or whatever these words on his computer were.

He read:

Last Sunday we were at Mass again and the gospel story was about a rich man who walked by a poor guy named Lazarus every day. He never noticed him – and the poor guy was always starving and wished he had food from the rich man’s table – but nobody ever gave him anything. The dogs licked his sores – but there’s something missing in life – if all you can relate to is dogs.

Jesus said that both died. One went to heaven and the other one went to hell.

The rich guy in hell finally noticed Lazarus up there in heaven and asked Abraham to have Lazarus dip the tip of his finger in water – and come down to hell and touch and cool his lips. And Abraham said, “No can do. It doesn’t work that way.”
Jack then read these words in Joshua’s computer essay,

“Well Jack and I have this gulf between us – and it feels like hell at times – but please God – as we get older we’ll spend more time noticing each other. That would be heaven here on earth.”
Tears. Tears. Tears. Sadness. And Jack then typed into his brother’s computer – into his brother’s document, “Joshua. I’m sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Please forgive me. God forgive us. I hope it’s not too late.”
Then Jack stood up and stretched. “Now what,” he thought. “Now what?” He leaned down into the computer again. He hit “Save!” and then turned off his brother’s computer.

He went downstairs and went outside for a walk – a long walk. It was almost Christmas and the weather outside was cold – but good for a walk. He walked and wondered, “Do I tell mom and dad about this?”

And the answer was a resounding – an obvious, “Yes. That’s the very sin and mistake I made about Joshua – this not talking to each other – this not noticing each other enough.”

And when his parents came home from their class reunion in Wisconsin, Jack told his mom and dad about what happened – and they talked and talked – without even mentioning how great the class reunion was – and that moment, that experienced changed their lives as a family for the rest of their lives – for good. Amen.

O O O O O

Painting on top: Dives and Lazarus by Martin de Vos [1532-1603]




Once more I would promote Father Jack Lavin's book, Noticing Lazarus at Our Door, Xlibris Corporation.

ON  BEING  POOR

Quote for the Day - September 26, 2010


"A north wind has no corn and a poor person no friend."


Spanish Proverb