Why Are We Running?

Easter Sunday

    [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen].  Forrest Gump, after returning home from the Vietnam War, and after he sold his shrimping company, and after he had tried to figure out what to do with his life, got off his porch and, as he said, “That day, for no particular reason, I decided to go for a little run.  So, I ran to the end of the road, and when I got there, I thought maybe I’d run to the end of town.”  He ends up running through his county, through Alabama, and across the United States.  In reflecting on his super marathon, Forrest says, “For no particular reason, I just kept on going.”
    While I have run the CRIM once, and sometimes run as part of my cardio workouts, I’m more in the camp of those who run solely because they’re being chased or chasing after someone.  And as for being chased, as long as you’re not the slowest, generally you’re ok.  
    But John’s account of the first Easter Sunday talks about Sts. Peter and John running to the tomb.  They run there to see if what St. Mary Magdalene said was true: that someone had taken the Lord.  John, who wrote the Gospel, adds what I like to think was a little fun jab at Peter: “They both ran, but the other disciple [that is, John] ran faster than Peter and arrived at the tomb first.”  Peter would have been in trouble if they were running from a bear.
    But they both ran with a purpose: to see the empty tomb.  They saw the burial cloths, and the cloth that had covered the head in a separate area.  They believed Mary Magdalene, that someone had taken the body somewhere else, as St. John makes clear, “they did not yet understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead.”  It would not be until the Risen Lord appeared in the Upper Room that evening that they would know that He had risen from the dead.  
    Do we, like Peter and John, run towards the resurrection?  Or do we, like Forrest Gump, run for no particular reason?  As followers of Christ, we should run towards a goal, not aimlessly.  Our life should be a run towards the risen Christ in heaven.  If we’re just running, with no goal in mind, we never know where we might end up, and it might not be in heaven.  
    As we go through each day and the different activities of life, we can treat the parts of the day like smaller races: waking up and getting myself and/or the kids ready–100 meter dash; working in or out of the home–3200 meter run; making dinner and cleaning up the house–400 meter dash.  And as we begin each race, we should do so with a prayer.  Maybe it’s a simple prayer as you wake up, like a morning offering, of even the short pious phrase, “My Mother, My Confidence!”, entrusting our day to the intercession of the Blessed Mother.  Maybe it’s the sign of the cross as you enter your car to drive to work, or as you begin a load of laundry at home.  Maybe it’s the Angelus on your lunch break.  Maybe it’s Grace Before and/or After Meals.  Maybe it’s a pray of thanksgiving as you put your kids to bed or go to bed yourself.  But praying throughout the day makes sure that we’re running towards a goal, and not just running like a chicken with its head cut off.  
    If we don’t focus our energy, we run towards other goals than heaven–earthly prosperity, power, fame–which do not endure and will not save us.  Or, it’s more like running on a treadmill, which expends the same amount of energy, but without actually going anywhere.  To share in Christ’s Resurrection, we have to want to get there.  Simply making our legs go back and forth won’t necessarily get us closer to the new life that Christ wants for us and that fulfills our human nature.  How sad would it be to find out, at the end of our life, that we ran the wrong way, or even didn’t run any distance, but only ran in place.  

The empty tomb in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre

    Today, let us join Sts. Peter and John, running toward an empty tomb, because Christ has risen from the dead.  Let us run the race that God has put before us, not aimlessly, but with our eyes fixed on our goal: heaven.  Each day we can run the small and long races, which hopefully push us closer to eternal life.  We use prayer to make sure we’re on the right track, the path that leads to heaven.  
    Forrest Gump later in the movie says, “I had run for three years, two months, fourteen days and sixteen hours….I’m pretty tired.  Think I’ll go home now.”  He had run for years, but without a purpose, without reaching a goal.  May our race of life have purpose, like Peter and John, and, spurred on by the grace and mercy of God, lead us to heaven.  [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.]

Making Room for God

Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

    One of the challenges, primarily for kids for also for adults, is what to get and what to leave at Thanksgiving dinner.  There are so many good foods that you start putting a healthy amount of the foods you like on your plate, but then you realize your plate is full and you’re only halfway through all the food that’s available.  And that’s just for the main meal; I’m not even considering dessert!
    The Pharisee in the parable that Jesus told today was full, but not with turkey and mashed potatoes and gravy.  He was full of himself.  As he prays, he didn’t even really engage in a conversation with God.  It was more of a monologue about how great he was, especially in comparison with the sinful tax collector standing at the back of the temple.  While seemingly making time for God by going to the temple to pray, the Pharisee didn’t really make room for God, and perhaps only went to the temple because it was expected of him and he had to keep up appearances.
    As followers of Christ, we have recognized a need for God, but do we actually make room for Him?  In our own lives that might start just with making time for God.  That might seem strange to say for people who set aside time on a Sunday morning to go to Mass.  But beyond just this time at Mass, do we make time for God in our life?  
    How easy it can be to go throughout a day and not make time to for prayer.  Maybe it’s work, or getting kids ready for school or teaching them in the home and trying to keep them from harming themselves or other siblings, and then making some sort of breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and just wanting to relax after a long day.  Prayer can be hard for families, and often does not happen, either as much or at all, unless it is scheduled.  Of course, prayer for the laity will look differently than prayer for priests, because they are different vocations.  You may not have 40 uninterrupted minutes for anything.  But do you do your best to make time for God, and not simply let God get the leftovers of your time and attention?  Maybe it’s only a few short minutes after you get up but before the kids have stirred from their beds.  Maybe it’s at the beginning of your lunch hour when you say the Angelus at noon.  Maybe it’s before each meal.  Maybe it’s 15 minutes as a couple after the kids are in bed, rather than just watching mindless tv.  
    Making room for God also acknowledges a truth that can easily escape our mind: we need God.  More than food; more than water; even more than oxygen, we need God.  We depend on God for every good thing.  And yet, how often do we go through a day not even calling God to mind.  The reason why God especially hears the widow and orphan, as we heard from the Book of Sirach this morning, is because they know they need Him.  Widows and orphans, unless they had family, relied on the generosity of strangers.  And I’m not sure that people exhibited more generosity in Biblical times than they do now.  When you struggle to find food, clothing, and shelter, suddenly what meme is breaking the Internet, or which celebrity is divorcing, or even whether or not the Lions are going to win suddenly takes a back seat.  It becomes much more natural to cry out to someone who can help, and God especially hears those prayers, out of His love for His children.  

    The tax collector from the Gospel also knew his need for God, though not for the necessities of life.  He acknowledged what was true for both him and the Pharisee, that he was a sinner.  He knew he couldn’t fix or absolve himself for the ways he had disobeyed God.  So he recognized his need for God’s mercy and asked for it.  And God, Jesus tells us, answered that prayer.  It can be easy to fill up our lives with fleeting things so that we pretend that we’re self-sufficient, or so that we pretend our sins don’t matter, and we miss out on receiving the good things God wants to give us, including His mercy, because we’re so full of ourselves.
    So as you consider each day as an empty thanksgiving plate, how much room are you leaving for God?  Or are you filling it up with so many other things that when you come to God, you’re like, “I’ll get that when I come back for seconds”?  God will not force Himself upon us.  We need Him, but if we don’t acknowledge that need, He will not impress Himself upon us, until the end of our life when we will be judged on how we made time for God.  Start with portioning out a healthy serving of God each day, rather than hoping you have room for Him at the end of the meal.  If you make time for God, not only will you receive the choicest foods and wines, but you will not hunger or thirst what what truly satisfies your heart!

Sanctifying our Families in the Temple

Feast of the Holy Family

The Holy Family in flight to Egypt

    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  As we come to this Feast of the Holy Family, we once again have the opportunity to reflect on how we can grow as holy families, whether our family is an individual, a couple, or a couple with children.  The Church sets before us a unique family as a model, as the mother is sinless, the husband and wife are celibate, and the child is God, but they show us the way to be like them, though we are not sinless or God.
    And this year what struck me was the Gradual, from Psalms 26 and 83.  In the English it reads: “One thing I ask of the Lord, for this I seek: to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life;” “Blessed are they who dwell in your house, O Lord, they shall praise you for ever and ever.”  As the Church has prayed, she has chosen to include these two verses from two psalms into the way we worship God and thank Him for the gift of the Holy Family.
    To be a holy family, our goal must be the house of the Lord.  The psalmist certainly thought about the Temple in Jerusalem when the Holy Spirit inspired him to write this psalm.  And for a good Jew, to be close to God one had to go to the Temple, where His presence dwelt, especially in the holy of holies with the ark of the covenant.

    And so for us, no matter what our family looks like, we should strive to be close to God every day.  As a family that may include this temple, where God dwells in the tabernacle in a special way as our holy of holies.  But it also means being close to God throughout the day, even when we cannot make it here to this beautiful temple.  Because, as the Apostle reminds us, we are the temple of God since the Holy Spirit dwells within us through Baptism, Confirmation, and the other sacraments we have received.  
    This should give us comfort when we can’t make it to daily Mass, or even those times when we cannot come to Sunday or holyday Masses because we are sick, or we’re caring for a sick parent or child.  Even if we cannot physically be in a church, God is close to us, in fact, closer than we are to ourselves.  He walks with us each day, whether we go to work, or work at home with or without the kids, or enjoy the rest of retirement, or travel on vacation.  
    In fact, Solomon constructed the Temple to be like a new Garden of Eden.  There were pomegranates and leaves, animals, a bronze sea, lights from candles, and bread.  Genesis says that God accustomed Himself to walking with Adam and Eve in the cool of the evening, and in the Temple one could have contact with God.  But since the veil of the Temple at the time of our Lord was rent, and the Holy Spirit came down at Pentecost, we can find God, not only in a building, but also in our daily lives and in the silence of our hearts.
    But, the Temple also created a more stable meeting tent that the Jews traveled with in their Exodus, which God gave to Moses based upon heaven.  And so the Temple points us not only to the past in the Garden of Eden, but also to the future in the heavenly Jerusalem, the temple not made with hands.  And to be a holy family, we should keep our eyes and our attention on that heavenly temple, where we hope to worship God night and day with the angels and saints, singing “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of hosts.”  Whether we are trying to keep our attention on heaven for ourselves, or trying to help our spouse keep his or her eyes on heaven, or trying to teach our children about how wonderful heaven will be and how we have to learn to make choices that get us closer to being there, to be a holy family means to keep our eyes on the prize and keep heaven in mind.  Our family Rosary, or going to Mass as a family, or learning and living out the virtues as a family all help us focus on being with God for ever in heaven, or at least that’s what they’re supposed to do.  It’s not just about the doing or the teaching, but about preparing our family, no matter its size, for the life that never ends, which we hope will be in heaven for us.  
    Keeping our eyes on heaven also means trusting in God, who supplies all of our needs in heaven.  And in that sense, it struck me that our Lord exhibited this in the three days that He was in the Temple area, as Mary and Joseph returned to look for Him.  Our Lord was twelve years old, and yet He survived in the Temple for those three days without parents to feed him.  I imagine he received some help from the teachers with whom He dialogued, but I know that Christ did not worry about what He was to eat or drink or wear, as He would later encourage us to not worry about such things in the Sermon on the Mount.  He was with His Father, and He knew His Father would take care of all things for Him.  So will God the Father do with us who are His adopted children through baptism: He provides, directly or indirectly, for what we need, and invites us to trust His will for our life, especially when it doesn’t match what we wanted to happen or what we thought should happen.  God may not will difficult times for us, but anything difficulties He allows help us to trust in Him and trust how He will take care of us even in the midst of our struggles.
    So, to be a holy family, focus on dwelling in the house of the Lord every day.  Maybe you can’t make it to Mass every day, but make time for God with daily prayer, especially silence, if you are able.  Sometimes it may be a simple sign of the cross as you care for your children, or a fervent prayer, “Jesus, help me!” when the chaos seems more than we can handle.  Or maybe its the less-than-five minutes to pray the Angelus each day at 6 a.m. and/or noon and/or 6 p.m.  Or maybe it’s a holy hour, especially during our Monday times of adoration.  But blessed are those who can dwell with the Lord each day, no matter where they are.  Those who seek to be with God will certainly be a holy family and will prepare themselves for the heavenly Jerusalem, where God–the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit–lives and reigns for ever and ever.  Amen.