THE  ROAR  ON

THE  OTHER  SIDE  OF  SILENCE

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 25 Monday in Ordinary Time  is some words from one of my favorite quotes. It’s some words from Marian Evans Cross [1819-1880] - better known as George Eliot. It’s in her book, Middlemarch, which some say is better than her better known book, Silas Marner, she says something quite profound.

Here’s the quote: “If we had a keen vision of all that is ordinary in human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow or the squirrel’s heart beat, and we should die of that roar which is on the other side of silence.”  George Eliot, Marian Evans Cross, [1819-1880]

Who of us have paused to hear the grass grow or the squirrel’s heart beat?

TODAY’S GOSPEL

Let me read today’s gospel once again - with George Eliot’s quote as background music, “Jesus said to the crowd: ‘No one who lights a lamp conceals it with a vessel or sets it under a bed; rather, he places it on a lampstand so that those who enter may see the light.  For there is nothing hidden that will not become visible, and nothing secret that will not be known and come to light. Take care, then, how you hear. To anyone who has, more will be given, and from the one who has not, even what he seems to have will be taken away.”

PROFOUND

There’s some profound stuff here.

If you have back porch and you sit there watching a squirrel and you pause and listen poetically, emotionally, spiritually, to that squirrel’s heart beat, you’ll start to hear a lot more. More will be given you as Jesus just said in today’s gospel.

If you sit there and watch the grass wave in the slight September breeze and you hear it growing,  something profound happens - you start to get a greater sense of God - God’s presence - God at work - creation creating and crumbling.

You’ll see elephants walking on the ground - with all 4 big feet - stomping on a 100 ants per step.  You’ll sense the poor of the earth being stepped on by the big of the earth.

You’ll see the vigil light stands in this church or any church and you hear the prayers of people for their children and their marriages and their cancers.

“No one who lights a lamp and then conceals it - and you enter into the prayers of each candle.

I was a candle boy as a boy in OLPH Brooklyn and as a kid I heard a priest talk about the penny candles - which became a dime in time -  and to enter into each prayer.

Once you get a sense of the invisible, the hidden, the secrets of the human heart, it makes you a very sensitive person - a very understanding person,  a very forgiving person.

You’ve walked in their shoes, in their mistakes, in their sins.

CONCLUSION

I sense this is what Jesus picked up.

He looked at rain, water, falling to the ground around the vines of Galilee and saw water becoming wine.

He looked at bread being eaten - and becoming the body of another.

He saw little kids - scared - afraid - touching the hem of their mother’s cloaks and becoming reassured.

He saw fishermen walking down to their boats with empty nets - but seeing in them the hope for full nets of fish.

He saw deaths and burials and funerals - of prisoners on crosses along the roads of Palestine - of widow’s husbands and sons - and he saw them being greeted by God, Our Father, in Paradise.