January 1 Homily--Life is Good.

Life is ultimately good and joyful.  

Our Faith, as catholics as Christians, is incredibly fulfilling.  

There is so much that make sense, and provides meaning.

Arriving at this though is not always easy.  

It requires a degree of effort on our part (and I daresay, at times a LOT of effort)

Yet, when the effort is made: as the shepherds, we go into our lives glorifying and praising God.  Glorifying and praising for the freedom and joy that we have found and experienced.

What is that effort?

It is in the phrase almost at the center of this gospel passage:  “And Mary kept all of these things, reflecting on them in her heart.”

Mary “reflects” couple of times in Luke’s Gospel:  she ponders the angel’s greeting, and when Jesus runs away from them to be in the Temple, after the resolution of that family drama, the gospel says she treasured all these things in her heart.

Socrates says, through Plato:  “An unexamined life is not worth living.”

The effort we all need to do, like Mary, is to reflect, to ponder, to contemplate, to treasure what we experience. Then, we are given the insight, the wisdom to be Alive!

Like Mary, whom we also call the Seat of Wisdom, that reflection opens us up to the richness of God and life, the richness of our faith, the richness of who we are as persons.

I’ve done some work with young persons just kind of waking up.  They seem to be frustrated because life is now more confusing.  They don’t understand why life seems so complicated, why the answers they seem to get from society does not satisfy.  They don’t understand why life is not going the way they want it to.

So we talk, and some begin to get it.  They go deeper, they look at choices, actions; and they look at what they want.

I hear it in confessionals, older people are hurting; filled with anger, sadness, fear; because the world does not seem to correspond to what they want.  They fell for the great lie that they can have whatever they want.

I experience with others, struggling to make sense of their emotions after never being taught how to process them, but told that to be angry, sad or scared was bad or even sinful.

This is where Jesus’ Gospel comes in.  This is where the mystery of Jesus Christ’ birth, life, death, resurrection and ascension can provide much more clarity.  But it is not simply one straight easy answer.

For that beauty, that elegance, that power to come through, there is that need to personally incorporate the faith into our lives.

That takes reflection and it takes time.

It means that we pray, we meditate on the mystery of God, Jesus and our own lives.  We ask ourselves..how has what I experienced, am experiencing now, reflected in scripture, in Jesus own way?  What is Jesus saying to me this day?  Where am I today?  Who is with me?

Luke’s gospel has Mary reflecting from Jesus’ conception and birth, his teen years and ultimately at the cross.  It was a journey of understanding.  We can’t rush our own journey, nor can we rush the journey of others.

I think one of our issues in our society, and certainly in our church, is we try to rush it.  We think if we just have the best program, our teens will get it.  If we just have the right music, people will come to a lively faith.  We want closure NOW; we want success NOW;  we want our goals to be met NOW

Nope.

We priests can fall into the trap of this, thinking if I am just logical and explain the theology people will get it and believe.  Or worse, if I just quote them the law, they will get it.  If I just build the best building, or renovate, preach a 2 minute homily and get the people out in 45 minutes...people will come. (They may, but for the wrong reasons)

Nope.

Life, Faith is a journey of understanding.  We have to walk this together, trusting each other, sharing with each other, encouraging each other, and as the prophet Micah wrote:  ”walk humbly with God.”

It comes back to Eucharist, because it is so essential to this need for reflection.

Eucharist, the mass, is to recognize that we are all walking, searching, looking for meaning; and we are at different places.

So we respect that of each other.

We recognize that there is so much more to life than what means the eye; just as there is a deeper reality to the bread and wine. So we need to reflect on what we experience, and realize there is much more than meets the senses.

And need to be encouraged to contemplate, to take time to think back, to contextualize ourselves with greater reality of Jesus Christ, with his life, death and resurrection.

When we honestly give ourselves to that, then our lives can be changed.

Like the shepherds, we will go back to our lives, but our perspective will be changed.

Like Mary, our minds, hearts and souls will be open to that grace of God.