Homily July 16. Being to Be

i am not preaching anywhere this weekend (so far) but here is my homily to myself.
How many of are perfectionists?
We walk into a room, notice a picture slightly askew, and we immediately go over and make it right?  Otherwise, we can’t focus.
How many of us crave closure or completion?  We do not like open-endedness.  We want chores/tasks done and to be done!
How many of are frustrated with the slow pace of change?
We work out, we eat well, and still those abs do not show.
How many of get angry when things don’t go to our plans?
Welcome to our Humanity.
We are human be-ings, meaning we are in the process of becoming human.  This also means that our humanity is not yet fully realized.
Because of this we have growing pains and these growing pains cause problems for us as persons, and this, as St. Paul writes, causes problems to all the world.
We are the children of God, this is the Good News!
Yet, I am fairly sure that none of us reading this have yet to completely realize this in our lives.  At least I have not so far.
Life is a process of on-going conversion into be-ing:  to BE those children of God.
Children of God being those who reflect our Father; persons who completely and wholly love others.
Since we are not there yet, we make mistakes, we get off track, we get distracted as we journey along life.
Paul writes of this because our mistakes; our sins; our failure to love, our choices to not love, but to be selfish, egotistical, all these “sins” cause suffering, they cause pain in this world and to the world.
The violence, the destruction of our environment, the death, the hunger and poverty, the isolation… these are because we do not love as we want, or need.  These are because we fail to be human, those children of God.
Christ came so that as we grow up, as we journey through life, we know that the divine grace is with us.  We know that God is with us (Emmanuel).
God is with us so that we can grow and mature as his children, to learn from our mistakes, and make better choices.  We can learn through God in Jesus Christ.
Christ tells us that the Father forgives our sins, knowing that we are broken, wounded and, yes, ignorant.
Because God wants us to be truly alive, to be truly the children of God that we are.
So when we love, when we care for this world, the people and all of creation; when we are compassionate, forgiving, self-giving; when we choose to not waste, pollute, destroy; when we share, give, and protect...we are moving forward on our journey of becoming truly human.
Reflection upon this I would hope, will make us more compassionate, more merciful.  I think of Jesus on the Cross asking the Father to “forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”
Think about the our relationships and the frustrations.  I think we want immediate perfection in them.  We expect our kids to act a certain way, our parents, our spouses, even our friends.  We even expect the world to act in a certain way...and it doesn’t.  
Frustration sets in.  We become impatient (btw, this is all a form of anger).
Even with ourselves.
Clearly God has patience with us.
God understands that we all must evolve and grow.  God seeds us with grace, and then awaits for those seeds to grow and produce the fruit.
So when mistakes happen, when sin happens, forgiveness is the only response.  We must ask for forgiveness and we must give forgiveness.
Then together we move forward to our fulfillment; from be-ing to BE humans.

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