BARE  RUIN’D  CHOIRS

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 33 Sunday in Ordinary Time is, “Bare Ruin’d Choirs.”

Those are 3 words and an image - a metaphor - from Sonnet 73 by William Shakespeare.

Here are the opening 4 lines of that sonnet:

That time of year thou may'st in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold;
Bare ruin'd choirs where late the sweet birds sang.

For some reason those words - "Bare ruin'd choirs"  hit me - or I heard them - when I read today’s readings. 

Right now the leaves are falling - falling - falling from the trees.  The cold is coming.

I saw two little kids this morning marching across a lawn. They were shuffling and making noise by kicking up the brown leaves on the ground and I was wondering what they were thinking and wondering about or feeling as they were doing this.

Change - things are changing.  The days are getting shorter - and Day Lights Saving Time in gone - and it’s darker in the afternoon.

How does all this affect us?

It's November - the month we traditionally think of our dead - visit cemeteries - and pray and honor our dead.

Today’s readings are end of the church year type readings that we hear every year at this time in November and they can sound kind of pessimistic and rather uh ohish.

BARE RUIN’D CHOIRS

Today’s gospel begins, “While some people were speaking about how the temple was adorned with costly stones and votive offerings Jesus said, 'All that you see here - the days will come when there will not be left a stone upon another stone that will not  be thrown down.'”

Reading that - picturing that - it triggered the human experience of how we feel when we see ruin - mess - disaster - a flood in Ellicott City - the continuing destruction in Aleppo and Mosul -  burnt down homes in the hills of California - a car wreck - even of a Lexus.

Ruin - wrecks - disasters trigger feelings - like being in a restaurant - and the waitress or waiter or server  is walking towards a table and a whole tray filled with 5 meals slips and crashes and hits the floor and silence bounces off the walls of the restaurant.

“Oh no!” “Uh oh!”

There are two types of people: those who feel for the waitress or waiter or server who experienced the crash and what they must be feeling at that moment - and the person at the table who says inwardly, “Oh no, another 17 minute wait.”

Ruined chapel at Holyrood House Palace.

Shakespeare must have seen a deserted church - a ruined chapel - without a roof. Only the bare walls remained. Weeds and trees and ivy crawled up and down the broken walls. And the monks who sang prayers there are long gone. Only birds on the branches or on walls can be heard at times.

Henry VIII and his people had looted and ransacked many a monastery.

The time was autumn - and if one reads all 154 sonnets of Shakespeare, one often hears his anxiety about aging - and the coming of one's fall - death. In his day, old age was much younger than today’s attitudes on what is old. His 36 to 40 is today’s 66 to 76 - or more.

He worried a lot about wrinkles and aging - aches and pains - the slow dying of the body as well as the death of buildings.

And I would add: In his sonnets we hear a lot about the fragility of relationships - how they can fail and crush one half of that relationship.

WHAT DO WE WORRY ABOUT?

Spirituality - and religion - and faith deal with worries and loss and aging - and how we deal with the changes of life.

How does the waiter or server deal with slipped and crashing trays?

How does the person dealing with waiting for his or her supper deal with slow and slippage and chewy roast beef - with gristle - or a hamburger that doesn't taste like the image of the great hamburger on its way as it’s pictured in one’s mind?

How do we deal with other drivers on the highways of life?

How do we deal with being dropped or divorced or dissed?

How do we deal with parents who don’t understand and kids who won’t go to church - or a brother or sister who won’t help with taking care of mom and dad who need help with depends and getting them to the doctor.

We come to church to think and pray about life.

We take walks from time to time to think and pray about life.

We listen to Jesus to hear his take on what’s really valuable about life.

It’s all about service. I like the word "love" - but I think two other words ending with "ve" - have more impact. Those words are "give" and "serve".

It’s all about waiting and receiving with joy the love of one another.

It’s about Thanksgiving which is coming up.

It’s about how we see.

WHEN DO WE LEARN LIFE’S LESSONS?

When I see kids making and playing with soap bubbles - big amazing ones that have a rainbow on them and they burst - does a kid learn a life lesson from that?

How about building sand castles at the beach and it’s almost finished and the tide has changed and it wipes out our castle? Do we learn anything from that?

How about a kid dropping his or her ice cream on tiny stones in an ice cream stand parking lot. Add to that a parent saying, "That's it! You weren’t careful?” Do they learn anything from that moment and that correction?

How about the death of a favorite grandmother?

How about playing with pick up sticks and a kid just can’t get the hang of it?

How about playing Monopoly or rummy or checkers and I lose every time?

As Dabo Swinney said last night after Clemson’s loss to Pittsburgh,  “There’s a lot more learning in a loss than a victory. Every time....”

CHURCH

Church is a learning center.

Church is a vision center.

Choirs are still singing in this church.

I had 3 masses this weekend at Our Lady of the Chesapeake in Pasadena and the cantor sang this neat song - and from my seat in the sanctuary I was looking out and it seemed like every person in the church was singing along - the refrain. It was a love song about how God loves us.

And a lot of people had their eyes closed and a smile on their face.

I was moved.

So I hope that singing and worshiping here moves all of us.

I hope by coming into church tonight a smile arrives and lasts on your face all week.

And I studied those faces and asked myself, “Why are you here today? What are you looking for? What do you need?”

The answer came loud and clear.

I need you Lord.

I need you to be with me this evening and this week.

Lord sometimes I feel like a bare ruin'd choir. The song is out of me. My faith has disappeared.

GARRY WILLS

Garry Wills in the 1970’s wrote a whole book called, “Bare Ruin’d Choirs” and it was about his disappointment with our church.

That’s what he said the Catholic Church had done to him.

Bummer. I pray for comebacks.

I feel deeply about those who left - family members - etc. etc. etc.

I pray that your church - this church - your inner holy place has a room and it’s a holy place because Christ is within you.

CLOSING EXAMPLE

Let me close with a powerful memory and moment I had and it has to do with a chapel.

I worked for 7 years at St. Alphonsus Retreat House in Tobyhanna, Pennsylvania. It was mainly a men’s retreat house - modeled on the famous Malvern Retreat house outside of Philadelphia.

On Saturday night each man on the retreat had 15 minutes of so in prayer alone - in front of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament on the Altar in the Monstrance.

The chapel was dark - except for candles and Christ on the altar.

After putting Christ in the Blessed Sacrament on the altar, I went into the sacristy behind the altar. 

I wasn't thinking. I stopped to figure something out in the sacristy and didn't get moving.  In other words I was slow and forgot someone would be all alone in the chapel.

So I came out of the sacristy and was about to walk down the main aisle of the small chapel when I stepped on top of the body of a man who was laying on the floor face down. So instead of kneeling on the kneeler before the altar, he was laying on the floor  before the altar.

I tripped - caught myself - I was much younger - and was able to right myself by grabbing onto the front bench.

The guy said, “Ooops sorry.”

I said the same thing and left.

The next morning Leonard, this 6 foot 4 bruiser of a man came up to me and said, I’m sorry about last night.”

I said, “No problem." 

Then I asked, "But what were you doing on the floor.?

"Oh," he said, "that’s how I pray when I’m here all alone in the chapel."

He continued, "I’m a plumber and a few years back we were digging this big hole to fix a pipe and we didn’t use a caisson. Big mistake. My son was down the hole and the whole sides caved in and he was buried.

"I screamed to Jesus Christ for help as we all grabbed shovels and started digging digging and my shovel hit my son right in the head - and we got him out - okay.

"So when I’m kneeling there in prayer, that’s my savior who saved my son."

That chapel for Leonard was no bare ruin'd choir.