[4] Thanks for Harry Chapin for the thoughts for this
reflection - found in his song, “You Are the Only Song” - as well as a quote from Charles Péguy, “A
word is not the same with one writer as it is with another. One tears it from
his guts. The other pulls it out of his overcoat pocket.”
DID YOU EVER WANT
TO KILL SOMEONE?
INTRODUCTION
The title of my homily is, “Did You Ever Want to Kill Someone?”
Well, I don’t mean
“kill” or “murder” - but I do mean having mean feelings that I want so and so
to disappear - because I’m filled with anger - and oops - sometimes ferocious anger
- anger that makes me tighten my fists and shake a bit.
It could be a parent or a sibling - a coach or a teacher
- or someone who breaks our trust or our jaw - dumps or cheats on us - hurts us
big time.
I feel hesitation bringing up this topic - bringing this
feeling up - especially in a high school gathering for a Mass. And we’ve seen
in the news in our life time school shootings.
Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.
And yes - schools sometimes have lock downs - about all
this.
So don’t do this - because this sermon could be blamed -
for such a horrific act to happen.
It scares me - preaching on this - on a nice almost
Spring day in March.
Yet I’m aware that it’s not the day - it’s the occasion -
when this question of killing others - shows up.
We see killings on the evening news - in our video games
- our movies - that sometimes have massive violence scenes. We’ve read in
English classes some of the tragedies of Shakespeare - especially Macbeth,
Hamlet and King Lear.
TODAY’S
READINGS
In my defense for bringing up this topic - this question
comes up loud and clear in today’s readings.
The first reading from Jeremiah 20: 10-13 begins with
Jeremiah saying, “I hear the whispers of all many - yelling out, “Terror!” I
hear people complaining about me - denouncing me - wanting to take vengeance on
me.”
Jeremiah spoke out announcing to the people of Jerusalem
that God is not happy with their behavior - and we know what happens to those
who correct us - and challenge us - we want to shut them up - even kill them.
Yet they keep singing and screaming that the times they are a - changing - so read the signs of the times and change - but who listens.
No wonder prophets begin, "Hear!"
They know people don't want to hear prophecies - messages they don't want to hear.
Jeremiah is throw down a cistern - into mud. He doesn’t
drown - and is eventually rescued - but sometimes people want to kill other
people to shut them up.
And in today’s gospel from John10: 31-42 the crowds want
to kill Jesus. They pick up rocks to thrown at him.
He challenges them - saying, “You have seem me do many good works. I have shown
you my Father.”
They scream at him the reason they want to stone him to
death. It’s for blasphemy - saying he was God.
HOLY WEEK
We’re about to enter into Holy Week - the last week of
Lent.
We’re going to go through once more - year after year -
the death of Jesus Christ on the Cross.
He was killed.
If you come to church next week - you too will scream -
when we read the Passion and Death Account of Jesus - what the crowds screamed
at Jesus, “Crucify him. Crucify him.”
“Kill him!”
And they did.
So that’s a reason why I entitled this homily, “Did you
ever want to kill someone?”
Two weeks ago in a homily I mentioned a poem entitled, “Indifference”
from a British writer - G. A. Studdart Kennedy.
It pictures Jesus coming back again - this time to the city of Birmingham in
England - and Jesus is standing there in the streets of that big city - but
this time everyone is ignoring him as he stands there in the rain.
And he longs for Jerusalem - where there are people
screaming - but this time people are killing him by their silence - by ignoring
him.
What hit me about that poem is that today we kill God -
the God within us - the God in our streets - and in our life - in our school -
and in our homes and our family not by wooden crosses - but often by silence.
We get this.
We’ve all been killed by silence - by neglect - by people
dissing us in 1,001 subtle and different ways.
I’ve been up here in the pulpit many times and someone
aborts me by the watch look. They hold up their wrist in the middle of my
sermon and look at the time - and then follow with a stretch and a yawn.
I’m against abortion - but abortion of others -
crucifixion of others in 1,001 different ways. There’s a guy who stands in the
back - against the wall there - just inside the back entrance - and he reads
the bulletin - all through my sermon. I pause - a few times more - to see if
he’ll look up - to see what happened. No luck.
I say this - because I notice this. I feel this. I do
this
It kills us all ever so slightly.
We do this to parents, brothers and sisters, teachers,
bathroom cleaners, bus drivers, waiters and waitresses - all the time. We abort
them. We kill them. We ignore them. We don’t notice them.
LET ME START
WITH GOD
Many of us kill God - crucify God - abort God - ignore
God - and leave God standing there in the rain - all alone.
We don’t scream in the night, “God you’re dead. Goodbye!”
We don’t rip all those pages in the Bible that mention
God. We just put the book sideways on the bottom shelf of our bookshelf or use
the Bible as a door stop - of the door that shuts out God.
NEXT OTHERS
And we do the same with others.
Every high school retreat I’ve ever been on, kids see
kids they never saw before.
Small groups can be small surprises - or sometimes big
surprises.
In the past 5 years - or is it longer - some people spend
the meal with people who are not at
table with them - but people they are texting or talking with on a iPhone or
what have you.
Then there are small wars. People don’t pick up stones to
kill others - but they do pick up words to throw at each other.
Then there are the big wars. The history of the world -
the history of this century so far and the last century - where I grew up in -
and some of you have both feet in for starters - is wars and rumors of war -
local and evening news world.
I heard Spike Lee say last night on the radio that 99
people die every day in the United States because of gun violence.
SELF KILLING
Spike Lee said that of those 99 people who are killed by
guns, 33 of them are by suicide.
The title of my homily is, “Did You Ever Want to Kill
Someone.”
Sometimes that someone is ourselves. We want to disappear - abort ourselves -
blot out ourselves.
We’re sick and tired of being bullied or hurt.
How many young people have killed themselves to get even
with someone who hurt them or dumped them or dropped them. This will get them.
CONCLUSION
In this homily I want to address this issue that will
preoccupy us next week - holy week.
The stations of the Cross in every Catholic Church give
us pictures way before TV or misjudgments, condemnations, violence, till we
finally reach the 12th station over there - when Jesus dies on the
cross.
People hated him - spit at him - screamed at him - along
the way of the cross.
He did standing up for those who were scapegoated -
because people refused to talk to themselves and others and our God about the
ferocious anger that can dominate us at times.
We get crossed - double crossed - cut - hurt - crucified
silently and violently every day.
Christ on the cross can help us deal with all this pain -
today - next week and for the rest of our lives.
Lent - coming to church - is a time to face all these
inner voices and screams.
And please notice that Holy Week doesn’t end on Good
Friday - if it did - it would be called, “Bad Friday.”
Nope it ends and a new beginning happens on Easter Sunday
- when Christ rose from the dead - and calls all those who have died to
resurrection and new life.
That means now for all - including those amongst us who
have died and been in the tomb for years now.
Friday, March 18, 2016
March 18, 2016
HOW LIFE
HAPPENS
Not the way we expected.
Yet, sometimes it does.
And sometimes that is unexpected.
Autumn leaves scream out, "It’s autumn."
Spring flowers burst! But then it snows.
The phone rings. Total surprise call....
We change plans. We have a Saturday to remember.
It’s a girl. We were expecting a boy! The kid can sing. Where did that come from? So and so marries so and so. Surprise! Time ticks. Lots of the normal stuff happens....
Then we hear so and so is cheating on so and so.
Bummer - and the affair changes everything.
Everything. The wedding ring comes off....
The wedding album is thrown out.... Sometimes life is a bummer. Sometimes tires go flat. Sometimes someone gets God out of nowhere. Good thing - because then the next arrives.
Cancer….
Life happens - and "Uh oh’s!" are uttered.
"Now what?" - is the next mutter. There will be a next. That we know. That's how life happens. It does.
[1] Cute Irish slang words for "idiot" "clumsy" and "dummy".
Wednesday, March 16, 2016
March 16, 2016
SHADOWS
Don’t neglect shadows. They
disappear into the deep dark night
and at high noon. But -
BUT - at all
other times - if we stop to look
around and look within - sometimes we can see our shadows climbing up
our back stairs or sliding along the
sidewalk and against our back wall.
Sometimes they make a slight coughing “Ahem!” sound - reminding us they are our past. We have our sins and our secrets - and they have their bad breath aftertaste. Oooh! Calm down, this is the year of mercy and forgiveness and doors that open wide with God ready to give us a big welcome home hug - along with a great big banquet. Enjoy. [1]
The title of my homily is, “Preach the Gospel Brand New!”
That’s something that St. Clement Hofbauer - whose feast
we celebrate today - said. Preach - Make - the gospel as new.
TWO GREAT
FOUNDERS
The Redemptorists had two great founders - one on each
side of the Alps.
For the sake of transparency we are Redemptorists here at
St. Mary’s
The two men never met
- but they could have. Alphonsus’
dates are 1696-1787 and Clement’s dates are 1751 - 1820. Clement became a Redemptorist in Rome in
1784. At the time Alphonsus was an old man in a wheelchair down in Pagani in
the Kingdom of Naples.
Clement then went over the Alps - to Warsaw and then
Vienna - from which we Redemptorists here in Annapolis came from.
WHAT THEY HAVE
IN COMMON: MAKING THE GOSPEL VISIBLE
The title of my homily is, “Preach the Gospel Brand New.”
Both men tried to make the gospel visible…. Brand new -
freshly baked bread.
I can say that because that’s how they saw Christ. That’s
how they saw God - that God became visible in Jesus Christ - beginning as a
baby - then a teenager - then a young man - who walked our streets and talked
our words - and tried to make them flesh.
Both Alphonsus and Clement preached in images and stories
and words that people got.
Both realized that the people of Europe were hungry for
God.
What greater reality for hunger is bread - the desire for
fresh bread….
Give us this day our daily bread.
It’s funny Alphonsus came from the mid upper class and
Clement came from the lower classes. Upper crust and bottom crust.
Alphonsus ended up working big time for the poor - in the
hills - the goatherders who were migrants - as well as small town and village people
whom nobody in the church was rushing to minister to. Clement worked with the
poor - the orphans - but somehow connected big time with the intellectuals.
Clement was a baker - who served the Eucharist to Warsaw
and Vienna and rounded up men to be Redemptorists to feed Europe in Vienna and
Warsaw and other places with Christ the Bread of Life - and also real bread.
Alphonsus was big - big on stressing the presence of Christ in the Bread - the
Eucharist.
Both showed Christ on the cross and in Mary. Christmas
and Good Friday were big time Christ Presence Moments.
CONCLUSION
Today - we Redemptorists hopefully carry on that tradition - preaching and
making the gospel brand new - freshly baked bread.
Just take last night.
I’m standing there in the vestibule here at St. Mary’s -
and I’m watching our St. Vincent de Paul workers - our parishioners serving the
poor - with money and food - gifts from the great generosity of this parish.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And just outside the corridor door I see people coming in and out - making
their holy hour in our Eucharistic chapel. Amen.
March 15, 2016
PRESSURES
Expression sometimes leads to
repression - as well as suppression -
which can lead to depression. Yet
sometimes there are concessions,
because of lessons learned or
someone screamed out an
intercession - and the pressure
ceased and the peace increased.
Then it dawned on me that this is the least or maybe it could be the best
