St. Thomas the Apostle - I have doubts. St. Peter - I put my foot in my mouth and experience forgiveness. St. Andrew - I bring people to Christ.
St. Martha - Just do it. Quit complaining. St. Mary - Keep listening. People need listeners.
St. Camillus de Lellis - I'm clumsy.
St. Maria Goretti - I forgive - it works.
St. Francis of Assisi - I want to keep it simple.
St. Francis de Sales - I want to keep calm.
St. Paul - I run and proclaim Christ with passion.
St. Therese - I want to do small things well.
St. Therese of Avila - Let’s start again.
St. Philip Neri - Smile! It works every time.
St. Augustine - Chastity - but I need time. St. Monica - I keep praying - he’ll come around.
St. Thomas Aquinas - Write it down then burn it.
St. Anthony of Padua
- I keep losing things. St. Alphonsus de Liguori - I'm trying to put into practice loving Jesus Christ. St. John of the Cross - I find God in the dark.
The title of my homily for this 30th Tuesday
in Ordinary Time is, “Groaning Prayers.”
Today’s first reading from Romans 8: 18-25 brings up the whole idea of groaning prayers.
They are groaning sounds which we can begin to see as
prayers - sounds we make when things are out of your control - as in others, as
in weather, as in health, as in the big mysteries of twists and turns in life.
They are deeper than screams to our God and at others and at ourselves.
Last night after reading today’s first reading I was
trying to figure out just how they would go.
So I experimented with various groans:
·uuhhhhhhh
·ooooooooooohhh
·aaagggh
·urrrrrrr
·grrrrr
·mmmmmmmmh
FOR STARTERS -
THE IDEA OF GROANS
We’ve all heard people groaning and moaning - oohing and
ahing - coming out with non-verbal soundings.
I’ve yet to hear them in church with Father Tizio’s puns
- but a good pun is supposed to get a superficial - sort of surfacy - groan or
moan. However, I’ve heard people make those pun groaning and moaning sounds in
the corridor.
Paul in Romans 8 tells us that the whole of creation is
groaning - like a woman screaming and groaning and moaning in giving birth.
Is that a woman’s greatest prayer - the groans in giving
birth to a baby - bringing new life into our world?
I’ve never been at a birth - but I’ve been at several
deaths - and heard the so called “death rattle” as well as painful other sounds
when someone is dying - or feeling great pain - especially when they have to
lift or shift their bodies.
TWO TYPES OF
GROANS
I don’t know if anyone did homework on all this. This is
a first draft about these sounds.
I assume that there would be two basic sounds - 2 basic
groans. - joy and sorry, celebration and destruction. Awe and uh oh!
Paul says all of creation gives off groans.
Wolves howl - dogs growl and also whimper when they are
hit by a car. I’ve seen documentaries showing animals caught in an animal trap. They can make eerie hurting sounds. I heard whales and
dolphins yellings caught on sound recorders from under the sea. Are they mating
calls? Are they screams. Everyone get here quickly - I found a whole
supermarket of food. Do they have death moanings?
I’ve heard humans blurt - actuate - deep hurting sounds -
when they are caught in a trap - stealing - cheating on a spouse - seeing a son
or daughter caught in a horrible accident or crime or scandal.
I’ve always been on the side of sound - if a tree falls in a forest - I believe that
it makes sounds - even if nobody hears it.
I picture glaciers screaming a squeaking, ice grinding
and chunk - plummeting - making growling losing it sounds - when they start to
split - losing big sections of their being - ice and snow that might have been
part of themselves for 20,000 years.
SO WHY NOT HEAR
ALL THESE GROANINGS AS PART OF REALITY?
Why not pray with these groans? See them as groans to God
- groans of pain and sounds of joy -
about all the wonders and realities of creation.
Picture the sound of a kid who is living in a horrible
home or orphanage and someone wants to adopt her or him. See, hear, their
sounds when they realize they are free. Hear their celebration as we celebrate
that God adopts us into the Trinity - as Paul tells us happens in today’s first
reading.
Get in touch with the deepest sounds we all make in the
depths of the ocean of our soul.
CONCLUSION
Okay the gospel for today, Luke 13: 18-21, also urges us
to calmly see and sense the beauties in our backyard: tiny plants like
mustard trees - or sitting there in a
morning kitchen looking out and watching birds getting seeds out of the bird
feeder - or see the rich greens and colors in the fruit and vegetable section
of Giant and let our gentle growls.
Or smile when making bread - at the whole process of
moments called “life”. Amen.
