IN YOUR HEART?
INTRODUCTION
The title of my
homily for this 2nd Friday in Lent and St. Patrick’s Day is, “What’s
Going On In Your Heart?”
TODAY’S READINGS
Today’s readings
triggered that question for me.
They are not St.
Patrick’s Day readings - but readings for this Friday in the 2nd
week of Lent. However, they trigger some St. Patrick’s Day thoughts in me. How
about you?
What’s going on
in your heart?
What’s going on
in my mind - which is connected to my heart - which is connected to my whole
body?
While preparing
this homily, I took a 12 inch ruler out of top desk drawer. I put one end to my
head and the other end to my heart. They are less than 12 inches from each
other. When I hear something with my
ears and I see something with my eyes and I process what I’m sensing with my
mind, if it’s a horror story on the news or I’m seeing a car accident on the
street or a house on fire, I grab my heart and say, “Oh my God.”
Eyes, ears,
mind, heart. they are all interconnected.
When tense, we clinch our fists and our jaws a bit more.
We feel it in our back side when someone is a PITA. That’s exactly what that
phrase means. Some people are a pain in the A. I know I have been described
that way at times. How about you? We feel stress in our bodies when we feel
stress in our souls. Relax! It happens to the other person as well.
So what’s going on in our hearts today - St. Patrick’s Day - March 17, 2017? I don’t know about you, but let’s be honest,
there is more stress going on in our country - say right now compared to 6 months ago.
RED ENERGY
Today’s readings
have a lot of red energy going on.
In today’s
gospel there is a lot of red blood shed in the vineyard.
Jesus, the dreamer,
is talking about his future.
In the first
reading Joseph’s brothers want to kill him. He is their father’s favorite - the
dreamer - the one who got the coat of many colors.
Dreamers -
sometimes get killed - or criticized - or ostracized.
Luckily his
brother Reuben saved him. Instead of killing him, Reuben sandwiched into his
words a plan that he came up with. Let’s throw him into this well here in the
wilderness.
Reuben figured
he could double back and save his brother. They took off Joseph’s coat and
tossed him in the well.
Surprise! Just
then they spotted some Midianite
merchants heading to Egypt - so they
sold Joseph off to them for 20 pieces of silver.
By the time
Jesus comes along they sold him for 30 pieces of silver.
The price of living
and dying had gone up and these stories and these details are in here in the
Bible for a reason.
Reasonable
people come up with reasons on why things happened long after they happen.
The brothers
slaughter a goat. They take the blood and spread it on Joseph’s coat and they
tell his dad, Jacob, that a wild animal must have killed Joseph.
And that’s how
Joseph got to Egypt - which in the long run - becomes big time in Israel’s
history and mystery.
THE COW THAT DIED
Recently my
sister Mary told me a family story.
Our people come
from Galway, Ireland - better Ballynahown, Ireland, County Galway, right on
Galway Bay.
It’s the land of
rocks - lots of rocks - and lots of cows.
In winter some
of the cows took a boat over to the Aran Islands - especially Inis More -
because it was warmer in winter.
Well a cow died.
An uncle was
told in the spring when he came to pick up his cows that one cow of his had
died.
He knew it was a
lie - an alternative fact - because there was his cow - standing there mooing
when he went over by boat to pick up his cows in the spring.
He told the cow
sitter, “That’s my cow!”
“No, that’s my
cow. Your cow died.”
Then the cow
came over to his owner - who said, “See!”
He didn’t win
the case or the story so he came to America.
How did your
people get to America and why?
I remember
hearing a story about a Jewish family in the deep south - I think it was
Tennessee. When asked why they settled
there - in some small town in the middle of nowhere, the Jewish guy said, “The
horse died.”
How did you get
to where you got and why?
America is the
country of stories - how people came here like Joseph - getting to Egypt - and
in time new stories happened.
There are an
estimated 50,000 illegal Irish immigrants in the United States.
My cousin married a construction worker in New York City - someone who was a
teacher in Ireland - and illegal at the
time of their marriage - which I did.
How did your
people get here and why?
Today’s New York Times - with lots of Irish
stuff - like all papers today - talks a bit about how so many Irish got
here to the United States - and we could add Australia, South America, Canada
and so many other places.
Fintan O’Toole
of the Irish Times has an article in the New York Times today entitled, “Green
Beer and Rank Hypocrisy.”
He begins with
this question: “Does green beer taste better laced with hypocrisy? Does
shamrock smell sweeter perfumed with historical amnesia?”
The title of my homily is, “What’s Going On In my Heart
Today?”
It’s right there!
My heart is worried about all the illegal immigrants in
the United States. I don’t want them rounded up and deported.
Here’s a comment from that article: “The Irish are at
least as fond as anyone else of being told how great they are, but as an Irish
person, I find this more than a little disconcerting. It is like having your
chastity praised by a brothel keeper, or your temperance and thrift eulogized
by a drunken sailor. The whole thing would be funny if it did not raise the
most uncomfortable question: Is it right to applaud the legacy of mass
immigration from Ireland because the Irish are white and Christian?”
My parents came to America for jobs. They came here
because of poverty. I heard my mother say many, many times, “Ireland has
nothing.”
When I finally saw where we came from I agreed and said
out loud to my dead parents, “Thank you mom. Thank you dad.”
And this was in 1995 when Ireland was doing well. Where
we came from was not so well.
Recently my sister sent me two pages from the late 1800’s
records from two churches - with references to grandparents. I asked what the X
was and my sister said, “Hello. You didn’t know our parents and their parents
couldn’t write?”
We have come a long way baby.
Well that New York Times article by Fintan O’Toole talks
all about all these people who have come legally and illegally to America for a
new life - for something.
So I would challenge you with the gospel - with the words
of Jesus - who didn’t get into the Inn Place to be born. I challenge myself and
all of us to take a look what’s in our mind, in our heart about all this.
What’s in my mind? I see these folks with Irish last names - who want to deport people. I wonder: “Do we
know our roots - and when are we going to start rooting for this new generation
of Americans?”
Don’t we know history? Don’t we know one of the most
common charges against the Irish in the
19th century was “in the words of one Yankee, ‘Irishmen fresh from the bogs of
Ireland’ were led to the polling booths ‘like dumb brutes’ to “’vote down
intelligent, honest native citizens.’”
We’ve come a long way. Lots of immigrants - legal and illegal - have made America great
again and again and again.
CONCLUSION
The title of my homily is, “What’s going on in your heart
today?”
What’s in your mind today?
The mind and the heart are less than 12 inches from our
mouths.
A good message could be: Think before we speak.
I’ve been thinking about this stuff for quite some time now. It’s past November
so I can say some of these things - without being criticized as making this
pulpit a bully pulpit - trying to get votes for a candidate.
Time helps one move from red to another color - today green - the color of peace and
serenity and grass with roots in the common brown earth we all come from. Our
skins are our coat of many colors.
Dreamers keep this dream alive.
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Cartoon on top:1850 cartoon mocking poor Irish immigrating to America.
