The silence is deafening.
Family members and friends must tiptoe around them. Spouses,
parents, children are held hostage by the silence. Not in our family, we
insist. Better to hold our tongues than set them off, we fear. It may be
alcoholism, drug addition, physical abuse that tears the family apart; or a
misunderstanding or conflict over finances, a divorce, a child’s rejection
of the family’s culture or values that creates a tension that represses the
family dynamic. It’s a silence that kills.
A student is struggling in school and doesn’t know how to ask for
help or is afraid to seek out a teacher for fear of being labeled.
A youngster is the target of bullying. He or she is miserable but is too
scared to say anything to an adult.
The project is failing; the business is going down the drain. The
company has many savvy, experienced people who know what to do –
but nothing is said, no one is consulted. This is a tough market – and
any appearance of trouble or vulnerability will sink everything. The surviving spouse is lost. The grief is more than he or she can
bear. But they don’t want to be a burden – the children have enough
going on in their lives. So the widow or widower becomes more and
more isolated.
Regardless of the cause or circumstances, fear is the controlling
agent.
Say nothing – it will just make things worse.
He won’t hear it.
She’ll never change her mind.
You’ll only get hurt.
Please, I can do this on my own. I’m fine.
And so, there is silence.
Silence – while hearts scream in agony and spirits shrivel and die.
Jesus challenges us in today’s Gospel not to tolerate the dysfunction
in our lives or allow our judgements and disappointments to isolate us
from others, but to confront those problems, misunderstandings and
issues that divide us, grieve us, and embitter us. More challenging still, Jesus says, is to face those situations in which our demands and
expectations are the cause of such turmoil and then managing to put aside those wants and needs of ours that are exacting such a heavy cost
from those we love. Christ calls us to the hard work of reconciliation, to
be committed to seeking solutions not out of indignation or self-
righteousness but out of a commitment to imitate and bring into our lives
the great love and mercy of God.
Archive for the ‘Ordinary Time’ Category
The Killing Silence 9-6-2020
Sunday, September 6th, 2020Easy Does It? 8-30-2020
Sunday, August 30th, 2020A young man, eager to make it to the top, went to a “success in
business” seminar taught by a wealthy tycoon. “What’s the reason for
your phenomenal success?” he asked.
Back came the answer, in a gravelly voice: “Hard work!”
“Uh, well, what’s the second reason?”
It’s natural to find the easy way to do things. Book stores sell
thousands of “easy” books. Spanish Made Easy, Five Easy Steps to a
Better Vocabulary, Easy Does It, Eat What You Want and Lose Weight.
Looking for the easy way may be natural, but today Our Lord warns us
that about really important things, the easy way isn’t the best way. The
easy way isn’t always the right way.
Perhaps the harshest words that ever came out of the mouth of Jesus
were aimed at his friend for counseling him to take the easy way. The
scripture says Jesus turned on Peter, turning on someone…what a
phrase, and said, in new Testamentese: “Simon, get the blank out of here. Your advice of taking the easy way, avoiding the cross,
eliminating pain at any cost, is a dangerous temptation that might make
me fall. I don’t need people around me that only judge by the world’s
standards. The easy way is not always the right way.”
Many of you here with some years experience know that what Jesus
says is true! Success in life requires a willingness to resist the lure of the
easy way. A sound body requires that you exercise, eat the right foods,
and conquer bad habits. A sound mind requires that you read, that you
observe, that you continually learn, instead of resting on a handful of pet
convictions handed down from grandma and grandpa and never
expanded or enlarged. A sound marriage requires that each partner goes
into it with the understanding that marriage is not a 50/50 proposition,
but a 70/30 one, in which both partners give 70. A sound family means
that we will take the time to be sensitive to the needs of our children,
that we provide not only for their physical needs, but their emotional and
spiritual needs as well. Such goals require sacrifice, they require
perseverance…Every one of us knows that the path to personal success is the path of self denial. And why should we do this unnatural thing, take the hard way, pick the cross, say no to our inclination to ease.
Because our Lord has loved us the hard way, the godly way, the right
way; no one who looks on that cross would ever complain when God
asks us to sometimes take the hard way. After all, Jesus did not come to
make life easy. Jesus came to make human beings great People of Faith!
Blessed Are You 8-23-2020
Sunday, August 23rd, 2020They were surrounding him. They were simple people:
his disciples, fishermen, people who did not think very much
of themselves. People nobody thought very much of.
Nobody ever asked their opinions. Nobody ever paid much
attention to what they thought or felt. The people who
mattered looked down on them. They smelled of fish. The
smell came out of their hair and out of their clothing.
And now Jesus whom they had followed as their model,
whom they had imitated like children, whom they were
surprised to be allowed to follow, asked them, “What name
would you give me? Who do you people say that I am?”
They could not believe their ears. It was impossible that
he was asking for their opinion. That is why they started
telling him what the scribes, the priests, the Pharisees, the
political leaders, and the important ones were saying. They answered, “They say, those other ones say that you are John
the Baptizer, others say Jeremiah, others Elijah, and again
others, one of the prophets.”
Then he said, “But you, who do you say I am?” They
looked at one another. Was he really going to pay attention
to what they thought? Again they looked at one another.
They nudged Peter, who was obviously their leader, and he
said, “I know who you are, we know who you are. You are
the Messiah, you are the Son of the Living God.”
And then Jesus said something strange. He said, “Peter,
how blessed you are because you do not say that of yourself.
What you said came from God, God in you.”
What Jesus said of Peter, he also said to us. I pray that we
believe that Jesus is the Messiah. I pray that we believe that
Jesus is the Son of God. I hope that is the reason we come
together today. That same God who was in Peter must be in us. We are
charged with God’s spirit. We are full of the Son’s spirit.
God is in us.
A lot of us have the bad habit of thinking of ourselves as
totally negative, as non-participants in so many affairs, as in
a sense, good-for-nothing. Just like the early disciples
thought of themselves.
Others are important – others are leading the world. We
forget the good in us – we forget God in us. We overlook our
potential – our dignity.
I read about an African Bishop, who was described as a
contemporary saint by TIME magazine. He was from
Tanzania. Bishop Christopher said we need two types of
confessional boxes in our churches, some at the right side and
some at the left side. In the left ones, you confess your sins,
getting as a penance to go to the right side with the obligation
to confess honestly the good you did, the good in you, the God in you. That is what Jesus said of Peter. Blessed are you, Peter. God is with you. That is what I say to you. God
is with you – in you. Don’t forget it! Live like you believe
it. Blessed are you!
