The title of my homily is, “Opening the Scriptures for
You….”
Today’s gospel - the story of the 2 disciples who were
walking the 7 mile trip from Jerusalem to Emmaus - is a favorite gospel story
for many. [Cf. Luke 24: 13-35]
The two were
followers of Jesus - but Jesus was arrested and killed - and it looked like
their dream was over. They were walking
along talking and debating about Jesus - and without recognizing who he was - a stranger on the road Jesus comes along and
starts walking and talking along with them. He asks them what they were talking
about - and they say, “Are you the only one who was in Jerusalem these past few
days - and you don’t know what happened there?”
And Jesus says, “What sort of things?”
They blurted out to him, “The things that happened to
Jesus the Nazarene….” And they told the stranger - Jesus - the whole story - how they hoped Jesus would
redeem Israel.”
Then they tell this stranger about the rumors that there
were reports that Jesus was alive - making appearances.
Susan R. Garrett
Then Jesus said to them, “Oh how foolish you are!”
Then Jesus told them all that was in the scriptures about
himself.
Michael Torevell
They reached their destination and Jesus gave the impression
he was continuing on the journey - but they urged Jesus, “Stay with us, for it
is nearly evening and the day is almost over.”
They sat down at a table and Jesus took bread, said the
blessing, broke it and gave it to them.
“With that,” the scriptures says, “their eyes were opened
and they recognized him….”
Significant!
Significant!
It was then that Jesus vanished from their sight.
Then they said, “Were not our hearts burning within us
while he spoke to us on the way and opened the scriptures for us.”
OPENING THE
SCRIPTURES FOR US
In all your years of coming to church, who have been the
preachers who really opened up the
scriptures for you? Who were the
preachers who opened up your tear ducts for you - when you were here at Mass? Who have been the preachers who helped you to see Jesus walking along with
you in your life?
Wow, would I love to do that kind of preaching. I hope
every preacher does.
Sorry.
Let me practice what I'm preaching. Sometimes - maybe 3 times since I’ve been here - something in a homily -
something in the scriptures - hits me and there are tears. I don’t know if it
hits anybody else. And I have also looked out
- from up here - at times - and it looks like something is hitting someone -
and it looks like they are crying.
Church stuff - Jesus stuff - God stuff - hits all of us -
hopefully down deep - inside - like that place we see in movies at times -
behind and underneath a waterfall. Back
there…. In there …. underneath there.
And we preachers know - it’s not what we said, but it’s
what the listener is talking to herself or himself about - or what they are going through in
their life at the time.
There was one priest in Brooklyn, who had a column in the
Brooklyn Tablet, the Catholic newspaper, who wrote great columns on spirituality
and the gospel. They would often get me thinking.
John Shea did that for me at times. He liked to retell the scriptures
for the day in a modern story or retelling of the gospel for that day. I like
to try that at times. [1]
I mention all this - because something like that hit
these two disciples that evening - on their sad seven mile journey from
Jerusalem to Emmaus.
MORE - IS THERE
A SECRET FOR OPENING UP THE BIBLE?
There is a statement from the documents of the Second
Vatican Council on the Liturgy that every priest and deacon has heard at least
10 times, “The treasures of the Bible are to be opened up more lavishly, so
that richer fare may be provided for the faithful at the table of God’s Word.” Then it continues, “In this way a more
representative portion of the holy Scriptures will be read to the people over a
set cycle of years.” [2]
That was stated in 1963 - and we have seen - better we
have heard - much more of the Scriptures in the last 50 plus years.
I hope the homilies
- and the sermons - have been better.
And the document on the Scriptures from that same Vatican
Council - in 1965 - quotes St. Jerome,
“For ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.” [3] His dates are 347-420, so he would have said
that around 400 or so.
I hope - because of opening up of more of the Bible for
us - has given all of us more knowledge of Jesus Christ.
I know I don’t preach enough on the first and second
readings.
I also know Catholics certainly have opened up their
Bibles and know the Bible a lot more because of the opening of new life for
Catholics after the Second Vatican Council.
Before I was stationed here in St. Mary’s I worked out in
Ohio - Pennsylvania - down South a bit - etc. etc. etc. preaching many, many
parish missions and I noticed in many, many parishes, Bible study groups - like
the one that takes place here. Thank you
Chris Cable and all those who do that. And I noticed that when Father Joe
Krastel gave his talks on St. Paul - people showed up and sang his praises.
The founder of the Redemptorists, St. Alphonsus de
Liguori, said, “The whole of our religion can be summed up in the practice of
the love of Jesus Christ.”
THE SECRET
In My Fair Lady,
there is a song line, “By George, I think
she got it.” It's a great movie - showing us how far a person can come till she finally gets it.
Life is growth - and we grow by glimpses.
I think I got a glimpse of how to open up the scriptures
- so we all can get to know Jesus Christ better. I want to do what Jesus did
for these 2 disciples on the road to Emmaus.
For starters, the disciples recognized Jesus in the
Breaking of the Bread.
At Mass we break bread.
At Mass we break words.
It’s called a meal. We have 3 of them a day: breakfast,
lunch and supper.
Okay it varies.
Jesus chose a meal, a supper, his last supper with his
disciples, and during that meal, he did two things. He broke bread and he broke words.
When we sit down to eat, we break bread and we break
words.
How was your day.
Can you pass me the bread. Can you pour me some wine.
If we don’t eat with each other, we will not have
communion with each other.
If we can’t stand each other, we will not talk and listen
to each other. We won’t be able to
stomach each other. We will not get strength from each other.
We will avoid eating with each other.
When teenagers start breaking away from the family, they
stop eating with the family. When families start falling apart, they stop
eating with each other. They are no longer called a Mass - the Mass of people
called the Smithtonian Family. People have to eat, but when they eat on the
run, in fast food places, or when they are in communion with a TV or someone 15
or 150 miles away on a phone with them,
they have dropped out of the little church called the Jonestonian Family. So too we see how people drop out of church. They start dropping out of the Meal called the Mass.
For starters that’s how to read and understand the
Scriptures and get Christ and be in communion with him.
THREE MORE AND
THEN CONCLUDE
Let me give 3 more ways to understand the scriptures.
First, the book of Genesis. That’s the creation account and where we come
from. Every human being has a creation account - where we started. Start
talking to each other - inter generationally - where we come from and who the
characters are - where the geography is, etc. Then look at Genesis the first
book of the Bible. It tells about Roots. Read the Acts of the Apostles - our first reading for
today. It tells us a good bit about how our church began.
Second, the books of the Prophets, who are our prophets.
Who challenges us. Last night at Distinguished Alumni celebration of St. Mary’s High School,
4 people were honored. It was wonderful. All 4 told of their mentors, people
who challenged them - to get them where they got to so far. Who are your
mentors. Who has challenged you to get you to where you have gotten to. Then
read the prophets.
Thirdly, Letters. what have been the letters of your
life? This might be disappearing with
e-mail. But what have been the letters of your life. I love the story about my
father writing love letters for 10 years from New York to Boston telling my mom he loved her
and will you marry me. Finally the last letter worked with its message, "If you don’t marry me, I
will become an Irish Christian Brother." She wrote back, "Yes." Thank God, otherwise
I would not be standing here right now. What have been the significant letters that put you in your skin and
your seat here today? Get that and
you’ll get a bit of the letters in the Bible - especially why they saved the letters from St. Paul.
Enough.
***********************
NOTES:
* Painting on top: Daniel Bonnell, Road to Emmaus
[1] John Shea, An Experience Named Spirit, The Thomas More Press, Chicago, Illinois, 1983
John Shea, Elijah at the Wedding Feast and Other Tales, Stories of the Human Spirit, Acta Publications, Chicago, Illionois, 1999
John Shea, Starlight, Beholding the Christmas Miracle All Year Long, Crossroad, New York, 1992
John Shea, The Spirit Master, The Thomas More Press, Chicago, Illinois, 1987
John Shea, Stories of God, Thomas More, A Division of Tabor, Allen, Texas, 1978, 1996
John Shea, Finding God Again, Spirituality for Adults, Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc. Lanham, Boulder, New York, Toronto, Oxford, 2005
John Shea, Stories, Acta Publications, 2008
[2] Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy (Sacrosanctum Concilium), page 155 in The Documents of Vatican II, Walter M. Abbott, S.J., Herder and Herder, Association Press, 1966.
[3] Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, (Dei Verbi), page 127 in The Documents of Vatican II, Walter M. Abbott, S.J., Herder and Herder, Association Press, 1966.
The title of my homily is, “The
Gamaliel Principle.”
It’s worth hearing this principle
articulated every once and a while because it contains good wisdom.
The Gamaliel Principle is very
simple: If God wants something, it’s going to happen – no matter how much
anyone tries to stop it.
People say, “You can’t fight City
Hall.” Wrong. You can fight City Hall – and at times people have won.
But if people say, “You can’t
fight God!” they are right.
We heard in today’s first
reading: the High Priest, the Sadducee's, the Sanhedrin, the Pharisees, and their
councils, all wanted to wipe out the Apostles – that is, till Gamaliel stood up
to speak.
Verse 34 of Acts 5 says, “But a
Pharisee in the council named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law, respected by all
the people, stood up and ordered the men to be put outside for a short time.
They he spoke to them.”
Gamaliel said: “Look, we’ve seen
this kind of thing happen in the past and in the long run, we found out it
didn’t work. These so called reformers fell and were destroyed. So time will
tell. If this is not of God, it will disappear; if it’s of God, let’s not find
ourselves fighting God.”
Great advice. If possible, don’t
sweat craziness. Remember stupidity has it’s own reward. Remember greed is quicksand
and it swallows up those who jump into its hole.
Then there are Church scandals. Relax,
the Church rights itself – in time.
We’ve all heard the story about
Napoleon saying to Cardinal Consalvi, “I am going to destroy the church!” and Consalvi
said, “Best of luck. We clergy have been trying to do it for centuries and we
still haven’t succeeded.”
I love the story I heard a few
times about the old lady from Jersey City who said, “The 5 marks of the Church
are: it’s one, holy, Catholic, Apostolic, and it survives its clergy.”
In the meanwhile, if possible, wait.
Eventually ….
This doesn’t mean we sweep stuff under the rug. This doesn’t mean there
shouldn’t be whistle blowing – and there will always be letter writing. This
doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t have councils to reform the church. We need
ongoing conversion – but what do you do, when nothing is changing?
I found two new stories or examples last night while preparing this sermon–
stories I never heard before.
The first one has to do with
Francis of Assisi. In the 1200’s times were not too moral for the church and
it’s clergy – so one of Francis of Assisi’s brothers asked him, "Brother
Francis," he said, "What would you do if you knew that the priest
celebrating Mass had three concubines on the side?" Francis, without
missing a beat, said slowly, "When it came time for Holy Communion, I
would go to receive the sacred Body of my Lord from the priest's anointed hands."
The second story or example comes
from traditions about St. Francis deSales. It has much more substance and you
can vehemently disagree with this.
“Once, St. Francis deSales was
asked to address the situation of the scandal caused by some of his brother
priests during the 1500s and 1600s.
He said, "Those who commit
these types of scandals are guilty of the spiritual equivalent of murder,"
destroying other people's faith in God by their terrible example. But then he
warned his listeners, "But I'm here among you to prevent something far
worse for you. While those who give scandal are guilty of the spiritual
equivalent of murder, those who take scandal - who allow scandals to destroy
their faith - are guilty of spiritual suicide."
We all know people drop out of
church because of scandals. St. Francis deSales is saying, “It’s spiritual
suicide.”
Not easy. But Jesus said, “I am
with you all days, even to the end of the world.”
So don’t go crazy. Trust in God. Now,
of course, there is a catch. It’s patience. It’s frustration. It’s the slowness.
The catch is the “in the
meanwhile, the poor get poorer and people go bananas with sinfulness, etc.
Relax: sin and selfishness and
stupidity – all have their own reward.
Relax: those who play with fire, get
burnt.
Remember there is always the
reckoning. There is a wash day. There is a judgment day.
Stink stinks.
Sin eventually rises to the
surface and sin floats.
Time tells all things.`
Trust the process, if you live a good life, goodness will prevail.
God sees the big picture – we go
crazy at little stuff like who’s going to communion and who’s winning and who
is getting all the credit. The universe is estimated to be 5 to 15 billion
years ago – and now with the Hubble Telescope, one number is 14 billion and
another figure is 11.2 billion.
And we humans haven’t been around
that long yet - just becoming a little
more conscious in the last 4000 years.
CONCLUSION
So the Gamaliel principle: Wait
and see! God does what God does in the way God does what’s what.
The title of my homily is: “Starting
Over and Over Again.”
I’d like to reflect a little bit on
the basic theme of conversion – or starting over and over again.
Today’s gospel continues the story
of Nicodemus from the 3rd chapter of John. The obvious theme that
keeps hitting me is the one we’ve been hearing: being reborn, starting over and
over again.
But the nuance I’d like to stress is
not one conversion or two conversions, but one’s whole life as a series of many
conversions, so called on-going conversions.
I LED THREE LIVES
When I was a teenager in the 1950's there was a book and later
a TV series, staring Richard Carlson, years ago, that was called, “I Led Three Lives.”
I only remember that he was a spy as
well as a counter-spy – with the name, “Herbert Philbrick.”
That title, “I Led Three Lives”hit me as I reflected on this theme of
conversion and starting all over again and again. We live and lead many lives.
Conversion is moving towards the
best life we can life – to move towards what the Marine advertisement says, “To
Be all we can be.”
THE NATURAL
Then there was the book and later
the movie, The Natural. It had a
scene that fits right in here loud and clear.
Glenn Close, plays the part of Iris Gaines. She is standing by the bedside of Roy Hobbs, played by Robert
Redford. He just told her how much he messed up his life. On the way to spring training to join the team that signed him, he met this mysterious woman in black. He saw her once. Once. That obviously changed the path of his life. He had a
very promising baseball career and he is shot by her. Glenn Close is standing
there listening to him tell this story in a hospital room. And she says, “I think we
have two lives. The one we live and
learn from and the one we then do the rest of our life with after the learning.
Hopefully, we live and we learn and
then live.
PATTERNS
But looking at my life, thinking
about issues which I need to change, and grow from, eating patterns, sleeping
patterns, work habits, prayer habits, etc. I see that there are many
conversions, many ups and downs in life.
POEM CALLED NICODEMUS
Here is a poem - called "Nicodemus" - which I wrote way back for a book of night prayers.
NICODEMUS
(John
3:1-21)
This time
in the wind,
in the night,
I stand at the door, Lord,
and knock once again.
I come,
empty and afraid,
asking, seeking, knocking,
hoping you will open up
your door to see me once again.
I enter
with fears and doubts,
questioning whether
it’s really worth it
to start my life all over once
again.
I’ve been
reborn too many times.
There have been too many
conversions.
Why should I rise this time
knowing that I’ll probably fall once
again.
And yet, Lord,
after each fall
this urge to come back to you,
the way, the truth and the life,
stirs in me once again, like the
Wind.
PROBLEM
One conversion can often be great.
There is the honeymoon and the
infatuation period. Then there is the struggle and often disillusionment period
that follows.
And then if we fall again, that
second conversion, doesn’t have the bells and the whistles, and bragging
rights, that the first conversion had.
I would think there is a vast difference
between a second marriage or a third marriage - compared to a first marriage.
THE LORD DOES NOT GET ANGRY
Today’s gospel talks about the wrath
of God and I often feel antsy when I mention that while reading the gospel.
One writer, speaking of the text
says what’s going on here is projection of our inner feelings onto God. The
text has a anthropomorphic sense. God is not a God of wrath - but we are.
One person described the after-effects
of sin as, “The recoil of sin upon the
sinner.”
When we sin, we get angry at
ourselves, not God.
When we sin, we damage ourselves at
times over relationships with each other.
So the recoil in on self, the wrath
is on the self.
GENEROSITY
Rather the Lord is generous.
Today’s gospel talks about God not being cheap.
He does not ration out his spirit.
He pours out new life on us. So go
to God and ask, seek, knock.
DESERT STORY
I found a good example of the
surprise side of God’s love. It’s about the copious redemption of God. All we
need to do is cry out of our depths for his overflowing, over abundant
redemption.
Here’s the example, “Two hundred
miles northeast of Los Angeles is a baked-out gorge called Death Valley – the
lowest place in the United States, dropping 276 feet below sea level. It is
also the hottest place in the country, with an official recording of 134
degrees. Streams flow into Death Valley only to disappear, and a scant two and
a half inches of rain falls on the barren wasteland each year.
“But, some time ago, an amazing
thing happened. For nineteen straight days rain feel onto that lone dry earth.
Suddenly all kinds of seeds, dormant for years, burst into bloom. In a valley
of death, there was life.” p. 61 in ed. Floyd Thatcher, The Miracle of Easter, p. 61, Word Books, Waco TX.
CONCLUSION
Now, we might ask, well why doesn’t
God pour down water on that desert all the time?
I don’t know.
But I’d rather see the story as an example that I can bloom, I can blossom,
over and over again.
I can call on the Lord and be saved.
If we are really honest, God is
calling us to conversion, to blossom all the time, Death valley doesn’t I can.
