LOOKING AT ONE’S
WAY OF SEEING;
LOOKING AT ONE’S SPIRITUALITY
INTRODUCTION
The title of my homily is, “Looking At One’s Way of
Seeing. Looking at One’s Spirituality.”
Today, for us Redemptorists, we celebrate the feast of
St. Gerard Majella.
Dates: April 6, 1726 to October 16, 1755. He died at the
age of 29 - having been a Redemptorist for only 5 years.
Re-reading his life again this morning, he got me in
touch with the question of his way of seeing life.
HOW ONE SEES
LIFE
Sometimes when I stand up here and preach I find myself
getting a bit nervous.
Why?
Well sometimes I see life and spirituality different than
the Saint of the day. To say and to think that, well that’s feels like a no-no
at times.
Next, I know people see life differently than I see life
- and I don’t want coming to church to be like coming to a wrestling
match. Remember the old joke: “I went to
a hockey game and a boxing match broke out.”
It’s then I have to tell myself, “Don’t be so
self-centered, Andrew. Everyone sees life differently.”
The key issue would be that we understand how others see
life and how we see life and we reflect upon the differences.
Comparisons is one of the best ways of learning.
HOW ST. GERARD
SAW LIFE
We are told by biographers of St. Gerard how he saw life.
Before I describe where I differ, I have a question. When
I read Saint Gerard’s life or any person’s life or any saint’s life, am I
seeing the saint’s way of seeing - or the way the writer of that person’s life sees
life.
I hope people hearing me or any priest preaching or any
writer writing, that they say, “Well this is one person’s way of seeing.”
I hope people also get in touch with their way of seeing
- and that from time to time compare it with others.
For example, it’s obvious to me that Luke sees
differently than Matthew. I think Luke would be easier to talk to than to talk
to Matthew. But that’s my opinion. My
way of seeing the gospel of Matthew and the gospel of Luke.
St. Gerard sees God sending bullies and screamers into
his life as God’s will. I disagree with that. But who am I? As a young man Gerard
worked in a tailor shop and the foreman was a bully and Gerard took that as God’s
will. He did that for about 3
years. He went to work for a bishop who
was a bully and a grouch. Nobody lasted
working for this bishop. Gerard lasted because he already knew how to deal with
screamers.
Next example, Gerard was accused by a young lady of abusing a young
girl. Gerard kept quiet and just accepted
the accusations as a penance. He
welcomed hardships and hard times.
In various Redemptorist houses there was a painting of
St. Gerard facing our founder Alphonsus. Gerard doesn’t defend himself when St.
Alphonsus reads him a letter from this young lady with the accusation. He remained silent, because our rule said not
to defend oneself when accused.
When this gal, Neria got sick and was almost dying, she
wrote a letter to Alphonsus. In this letter she said she made it all up. She
admitted her lies.
She said that with Gerard’s help, she had made a decision
to enter a convent. She soon realized she had made a mistake, so she accused
the nuns in the convent of stuff as well as Gerard. She left after 3 weeks there
and blamed the nuns there as well as Gerard of nasty behaviors.
I learned from a similar case that took place in North
Carolina. A former golfer started a day care center for kids called, The Little
Rascals Day Care Center. His name was Bob Kelly.
Well some little kid came home from the day care center
and said to his mother, “Mr. Kelly did something wrong.” But he wouldn’t tell his mother what the
wrong was. The mother took the kid to
a therapist - and then the whole thing
got out of hand. It ended up that 7 people got accused of public sexual acts at
the day care center. He ended up going to trial and was convicted of some 270
counts of sexual acting out and got 12
life sentences.
I heard about it and because I knew about a few of these
kinds of FMS syndrome cases - I began writing to Mr. Kelly in support as well
as to the governor of North Carolina.
The solution is: if you know you’re innocent get a lawyer
fast and sue the accusers.
In time he was exonerated and won the biggest law suit of
this kind in the history of North Carolina.
In St. Gerard’s story we read that he had a different
spirituality that all this is the will of God - to give us suffering from which
we can grow.
I heard that kind of spiritual attitude as I was growing
up and being formed as a Redemptorist. When I had my chance to be someone who
formed others in becoming Redemptorists I took a different point of view. I
felt I was teaching a better
spirituality and humanism.
I thought that I had grown.
CONCLUSION
Those are a few points about an agenda I have.
Don’t we all have agendas. I am saying today to get in
touch with knowing your agenda as well as others - and try to find out what’s
best.
To me the great laugh about St. Gerard is that he was an
uneducated tailor who ended up a great saint. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard
from Redemptorists who went to Italy and attend the Redemptorist shrines, that
their big surprise was that St. Gerard
is much more popular than Saint Alphonsus - author of 101 books, etc. etc. etc.
Saint Alphonsus was a Bishop and doctor of the church and
Gerard the tailor becomes patron saint of Mothers. This non-married male tailor
becomes the Patron Saint of women who want to get pregnant or for women who are
having tough pregnancies.
