The title of my homily for this Fourth Monday in Lent is, “A Request.”
If you heard Jesus was nearby, and you could approach
him, and make one request what would it be?
It’s like the old, “You got one wish” stories.
If you had one wish or one request, what would it be?
MAKE A LIST
Don’t blurt out your immediate response. Take your time.
Make a list.
Be like a kid standing in an ice cream store - and all
those flavors are in those big round containers - right in front of you -
behind glass. Pick one.
FOR FAMILY,
FRIENDS, OR WORLD
What would be your request?
The royal official from Capernaum - comes to Cana - where
Jesus was and asks Jesus to heal his son - who was near death.
And Jesus heals the royal official’s son from a distance.
And the gospel of John for today says, “Now this was the second
sign Jesus did when he came to Galilee from Judea.” [Cf. John 4: 43-54]
I don’t know what I would ask for - if I had one request.
For beginners, I would pick some family stuff where
people are not talking to people.
Then again, there are people with cancer, who asked for
prayers - for healing. But why not pray
for those doing cancer studies so a lot of people will be healed?
I think of one of our priests, Father Dennis Billy, who
had bad cancer a few years back - but is doing very well - is teaching, giving talks, writing books and is doing good priestly
stuff.
I prayed for him and a bunch of people like my niece
Margie who is in remission from her cancer.
Or should I pray for so and so that he wake up and
change? How does that work?
WHAT ABOUT THE
ACTION SIDE - THE WORK SIDE OF PRAYER?
One of my favorite sayings is, “Pray for potatoes - but
pick up a shovel.”
The royal official got in his chariot or however he got
to Cana - to make the request in person.
Today’s first reading from Isaiah 65: 17-21 has the Lord
talking about creating a new heavens and a new earth.
That triggered the Woody Allen joke comment: “God created
the world, except certain parts of New Jersey”
Aren’t we making God’s prayer come true if we do our part
to make our world beautiful. I know I have always been nudged by Buckmister
Fuller’s comment: “Whenever you use a public bathroom, make it cleaner than
when you walked in.” I know I have been
doing that ever since. Fuller’s comment
always triggers the Golden Rule. I like
a clean stall and sink in a bathroom - so why not make it happen for the next
person? I can do that - and wash my
hands afterwards.
CONCLUSION
So that’s my homily. Make a wish. Make a request. Make a prayer. Then pick up a shovel and start digging. !
“The greatest thing
in family life is to take a hint when a hint is intended - and not to take a
hint when a hint is not intended.”
Robert Frost (1874-1963)
Painting on top: Norman Rockwell, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays
Sunday, March 11, 2018
NOW
THAT WAS DUMB!
INTRODUCTION
The title of my homily for this Fourth Sunday in Lent [B]
is, “Now That Was Dumb.”
How many times in our lifetime have we said to ourselves,
“Now that was dumb.”
We said the wrong thing. We did the wrong thing. We thought
the wrong thing. And when that’s our
pattern, we continue doing the wrong thing over and over again.
That’s dumb - but we still do dumb things.
We could have got gas at that last exit - but we didn’t -
and we run out of gas on this next ramp
on the New Jersey Turnpike. I’ve done that two times. I thought I learned from
the first time I did that.
I did learn from the second time - so I could only say, “Dumb….
Dumber…”but not “Dumbest.”
But in other things, I can be a repeat performer of dumb
things.
TODAY’S GOSPEL
Today’s gospel triggers these thoughts.Jesus said to a guy named Nicodemus that when
Moses was in the desert people were being bitten by poisonous snakes, so he
grabbed a poisonous snake - nailed it to a pole - gathered the people - pointed
to the snake and said, “This is what is killing you. Avoid these
creatures.They bite. They’re poisonous”
That’s my basic message for this mass: “Don’t do dumb!”
Yet we do dumb many times.
Name your poison.
Anger - procrastination - laziness - booze - not
practicing - not thinking - jealousy - comparisons - not getting enough sleep -
eating too much junk food or sugary,sugary drinks - etc. etc. etc.
Name your poison.
Know the 7 Capital Sins.
St. Paul in his letter to the Romans talks about the same
thing.I say to myself, “I’ll never do
that again.”Or “I am going to do this” and
then I go out and do just the opposite.
Now that is dumb.
St. Augustine read St. Paul and said the same thing in
his classic book, The Confessions.
Before you die you better read that book every 10 years -
and each time you’ll hear something new.
St. Augustine said, “I tell my right hand I’m going to do
this and then I do the opposite with my left hand.”
In today’s gospel Jesus says that we do this. We prefer
darkness to the light.
Listen to Jesus again: “And this is the verdict, that the
light came into the world, but people preferred darkness to light, because
their works were evil.”
It’s dumb when we overeat dessert. There on the table is
endless ice cream and cake and we take too much. Then we can’t sleepbecause we’re having a sugar high.
It’s difficult to turn off the TV - get enough sleep -
especially when it’s late and we have a busy day in the morning.
And funny - sometimes we remember the dumb - for the rest
of our lives.
For example, I’m around 32 years of age. I’m in Connecticut.
It’s early Sunday afternoon. Some guys asked me to join in a pickup basketball
game - 3 against 3 - and I say, “I gotta get back to New Jersey - and finish a
paper for school Monday morning.” I was going part time to Princeton
Theological at the time working on another Master’s Degree.
“Okay,” I said - and one game ran into a second game -
into a third game.
Dumb me. I don’t know if we won or lost.I’m sure we had a good time. But Sunday
traffic and a long trip from Suffield Connecticut - above Hartford - to Long
Branch, New Jersey - had me home around 11 P.M.
The result was a C-Paper - staying up late - half asleep
- and being very tired the whole next day.
Now that was dumb.
But I’ve been doing that my whole life: Dumb, dumber,
dumbest.
I say it every time, “Now that was dumb.”
How about you?
EGGSAND A GUITAR
We can also do smart.
It’s work.
It’s difficult.
But we can do smart.
It takes practice, practice, practice.
I remember a baseball player, Howard Johnson, who played
for the Detroit Tigers.They moved him
from the outfield to third base in Spring Training.
The manager, I think it was Jim Leyland, who had him
catch fresh eggs.
The first few dozens broke - but once he learned now to
go with the flow and the throw - he was soon a very smooth catcher of hits to
third base.
Practice, practice, practice.
The result was a good third baseman.
Eggs - practicing with eggs…. Someone might have said, “That’s
dumb. That’s stupid, stupid, stupid” and never become a regular third baseman.
That’s sports. Let me switch over to music.I remember a guy I met in my first parish on
the Lower East Side of Manhattan.He
practiced his guitar 6 or 7 hours a day - and eventually he got a good job in a
record recording company in New York City. The practice paid off - and this became
his life - getting better and better and better. Practice. Practice. Practice.
LIGHT OR DARKNESS,
SMART OR DUMB
So we have a
choice.
We can walk in the light or crawl in the dark.
There are 2 kinds of people: smart or dumb.
The dumb person when things go wrong,they start blaming others, blaming parents, blaming
teachers, blaming coaches, blaming the wind or the grass for an errors or
amistake.
It’s called scapegoating. It’s called killing the
messenger.
CONCLUSION
We’re moving through Lent now.the major sign and symbol for Lent and for
Christians is the cross.
Jesus got blamed by others - for challenging others.
He was scapegoated.
He was killed for s0peaking up and out on how to do life
lovingly..
He spoke up on what is right and wrong.
He was crucified on a cross.
On one side was the Good Thief and the Bad Thief on the
other side
The bad thief starting making bad comments to Jesus instead
of taking responsibility for his crimes.Now that was dumb.
The other guy, the so called Good Thief, said, “Hey knock
it off. We’re here because we know what we did wrong. but this man did nothing
wrong. He is innocent.”
So Jesus then said to the Good Thief. Today, you’ll be
with me in paradise.”
Translation:honesty, admitting we made a mistake is the key to paradise. Now that’s
being smart.
