By Deacon Jerry Franzen Cathedral 2/16/2019
Jeremiah 17:5-8 1 Corinthians 15:12, 16-20 Luke 6:17, 20-26
Praised Be Jesus Christ Good morning everyone.
As I read and reread today’s
readings I heard a common thread:
God is
telling us that we must trust in Him.
*“A television program
before the opening
of the 1988 Winter Olympics featured blind skiers
being trained for slalom skiing, impossible as
that sounds.
Paired with sighted skiers,
the blind skiers were taught on the flats
how to make right and left turns.
When they had mastered that,
they were taken to the slalom slope,
where their sighted partners skied behind them shouting
‘Left!’ and ‘Right!’ as needed.
As they obeyed the commands,
they were able to negotiate
the course and cross
the finish line.
They were completely
dependent on the sighted skier’s words;
It was either complete trust or catastrophe.”
I
Through the prophet
Jeremiah, God told the Israelite people,
and us today, not to put our trust in human beings or
in strength in the flesh or to turn away from God.
Jeremiah says that THEN we
would be like mere bushes
in the desert poorly
rooted in barren soil.
We do not want to be like that.
We are to trust the Lord,
and THEN we will be like
well-watered trees that
can flourish even in a drought.
St. Paul, in his first
letter to the Corinthians was telling them,
and us, that we should trust in the Lord,
that we should believe in His resurrection.
For His resurrection is the
means by which we are raised from sin
to eternal life with Him.
In the selection from the
Gospel according to St. Luke,
Jesus cites four human conditions:
poverty, hunger, sadness and rejection.
Jesus says these are
“Blessed” conditions that will be relieved,
and that those suffering these conditions
will be greatly rewarded in heaven.
I interpret this to mean that
they will be saved
through their trust
in God.
In the second part of that
reading Jesus said “Woe” to those
who trust in their richness, their being fully satisfied
with food,
their
happiness and their being spoken of well.
The implication of the “Woe”
is that their misplaced trust
in worldly things will not bring them to the reward of
heaven.
II
So we might ask, why did
Jesus choose the first four to be “Blessed”
and warned their counterparts
with the word “Woe?”
As I see it, the first four
were “Blessed”, because, persons
in these conditions,
had little in the world
in which to
place their trust.
The poor have always had little
reason to truly trust
that they will be
provided with what they lack.
The hungry have had little real
trust that they could depend on
someone to provide
their daily meals.
that guarantee is there that
there will be someone
to lift the spirits
of the sorrowful
or come to the aid of those who were hated?
They are “Blessed” by that
fact they often have no one on their side
but the Lord; no one or nothing else
in which to put their trust but the Lord.
On the other hand the rich, those
who have plenty of food,
those who are happy
and those liked by all,
have little or no reason to have to trust in
others.
Jesus was warning them that no
need for others
could lead to no
need for God, no need to trust in God.
Let’s be sure we are clear
here:
just because one is poor, hungry, sad or hated
does not guarantee a place in heaven.
But their less reason to
trust someone or something of the world,
may make them more inclined to put their trust in God.
Just because one is rich,
fully satisfied, happy or well thought of
does not mean that person is doomed to hell.
Jesus’ warning is that a
person in these conditions
may find no reason to need to trust anyone of anything
including
the Lord.
That person has it all
together on his or her own.
III
We all know that our
salvation, our joining God in heaven,
is the bottom line.
Poverty or riches, hunger or
food aplenty, sadness or happiness,
being scorned or being praised,
none of these alone or in any combination will
assure us
of meeting our goal of heaven.
We will be welcomed to the
heavenly banquet through our holiness.
“Holiness?”, you might say. Yes, holiness. What is holiness?
I once gave a talk on
holiness and used this definition:
“Holiness is doing what God wants you to do.”
By now you might be
thinking,
“How is holiness related to our trust in God?”
Stick with me.
A couple weeks ago, I
noticed a stack of books on the cabinet
by the
reconciliation room in the back of our Cathedral.
The title of the books
caught my eye:
The title was “The Biggest Lie in the History of
Christianity”
What would that lie be? Some propaganda against Christianity?
“What enemy of the Church
left these here?”
That is what I thought until
I looked at the author’s name:
Matthew Kelly
He writes and publishes
books on the Catholic faith
and his company the Dynamic Catholic Institute in Erlanger
occasionally donates books to local parishes.
Certainly he is not an enemy
of the Church.
I took a copy of the book
and have been reading it.
Matthew Kelly says that this
greatest lie in Christianity is this:
Holiness is impossible.
With all of the worldly
things, persons, fads, whatever,
to tempt us to sin, many
regard holiness as impossible.
Matthew Kelly says that
rather than thinking of holiness
as a property of our lives in an overall sense,
we should think of our lives a series of
opportunities
for Holy Moments.
**He defines a Holy Moment
as
“a moment when you open yourself to God.
You make yourself
available to Him.
You set aside
whatever you feel like doing in that moment,
and you set aside self-interest, and for one
moment
you simply do what you prayerfully
believe
God is calling you to do in
that moment.”
Each weekend most of us
would rather spend all the time
in rest and relaxation at home.
But we hear God telling us
to get to Mass
and we respond by taking the time to come to Mass.
Just our coming here is a
Holy Moment
aside from all the other Holy Moments we can experience
while we
are here at Mass.
You see, I just proved that
holiness is possible.
Many saints would admit that
they did not live holy lives,
lives in which everything they did
was what God was calling them to do.
They lived lives of many Holy
Moments and we can do the same.
**A nurse was on sick leave
and her time of paid leave was up,
but her illness continued.
If she missed more work, she
would not be paid – no income.
One coworker suggested
to another nurse
that they might start a “Go Fund Me” page on the web.
Another nurse had a better
suggestion:
Since the ill nurse worked three shifts each week,
they could each take one of those shifts as an
extra shift
so that the ill nurse could continue to
be paid.
What a Holy Moment for each
nurse
covering one shift
each week for their ill coworker!
It was truly a beautiful
thing for each of them to be doing this.
John Keats wrote, “A thing
of beauty is a joy forever.”
It must have been quite a joy
for these three nurses.
The ill nurse was out for three years.
Holy moments are truly
moments of joy;
moments when we
realize that
“Hey, we are
really doing what God wants us to do.”
In order to experience these
Holy Moments
we must be listening to what God is telling us.
Furthermore, we must trust
in what we are hearing.
We must trust that it is God
speaking to us.
We must trust that we can do
what God is telling us to do.
*Recall the story of the
blind skiers.
It is a wonderful metaphor
for the Christian life.
In this world, we are in
reality blind about what course to take.
God is right here with us
like the sighted ski partners.
He is the only one for us
who is truly sighted.
His Word gives us the
direction; we need to finish the course.
*From
“750 Engaging Illustrations for Preachers. Teachers and Writers, Craig Brian
Larson and the Leadership Journal, Baker Books, Grand Rapids, MI, 2002 p592
**From
“The Biggest Lie in the History of Christianity”, Matthew Kelly, Wellspring,
North Palm Beach, FL, 2018 pp 35-36
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