17th Sunday Homily Community heals. Community experiences Salvation

The past three weeks our second reading as been a progression through St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians.
It started off with that beautiful poem speaking of God’s plan of salvation in Jesus Christ, of our destiny to be united with God and thereby with all.
Unity and community is the common theme through these three weeks:  because as we know Salvation is a team effort.
How can “I” experience salvation, when the “you” still suffers?
How can “We” as church experience salvation, when the “they” still hurt?
God’s very nature is community, God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit; a unity of three persons, bound in mutual, indwelling, dynamic love.
We are creatures of this love, created in God’s own image:  community is part of our make-up, our own nature.
Church means community.
I loved this saying I heard many years ago:  We go to church. Yet, “Church” is not a noun, but a verb.  We go to continue our community.
We come to the building, to build our community up.
We come as community because to know and experience Jesus’ salvation, we need to be with others.
Jesus showed us how, and St. Paul reminds us:  Humility, gentleness, love.
All with the goal of preserving unity.
These virtue of humility, gentleness, and love, we learn here then are carried out those doors to our homes, our schools, our workplaces, in traffic, at Starbucks, in the grocery store…
See our mission is not to be Good Catholics only in this building, but out there.
Our mission as parish is to live as community within a wider community.
These virtues of humility, gentleness and love are to be a part of our normal day to day lives.
Because there are people hurting; out there and in here too.
Hurting from grief, because they have lost a loved one.
Hurting from fear, because the world and change scares them.
Hurting from anger, because they expect the world to do what they want, and it doesn’t comply.
There are people hurting in depression, isolation, alienation.
People who do not feel their worth, their dignity.
People caught up in their addictions.
There was European study, I think it was in Iceland, where they connected addicts with people in the community; basically set up a mentor/sponsor with those caught up in addiction...and within a few years those who remained sober increased. Drug use diminished.
The power of community to heal.
Young persons out there too have not been taught well how to communicate and form community.  Yes, all of us can text and use social media. I do it as well.
But… that one-on-one sharing has not been developed, and it is hurting our young persons, it is hurting us.
One of the great calls in Youth and Young Adult ministry, and even beyond to all of parish life right now is for accompaniment.  
It is to walk with our Youth, so let them ask questions, to let them raise their concerns without fear of retribution.
I firmly believe this.
I had one parent proudly tell me that his child could quote Thomas Aquinas’ Summa, and I am thinking yes, but can she show gentleness to a stranger, compassion for someone who has hurt her?
Notice what Jesus did when he actively started his ministry?  Jesus formed a community around him and they walked together. He did not immediately sit them in classes and began a doctrinal course in Scripture.  
They walked.  They accompanied him on the journey.
Look at the gospel today, he taught them about the power of community to heal and feed!
We are at a crossroads in our understanding of our Catholic Church and how we form and be community.  The models from the past served us well in the time, but it is clear that they do not now.
Too many people are leaving our community, not finding it relevant, or worse, finding us hypocritical because we preach community, but do not live it.
We must heed the words of St. Paul, renew those virtues: humility, gentleness, love.

We must see beyond ourselves, see beyond our fear, our anger, our sadness, and see ourselves intimately connected to those around us…
And be willing to offer community to others.

Be willing to be and do church.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

19th Sunday. With just a little faith...

Image
Parents, you are amazing. Each day you wake up and walk into the chaos of life with those special little somethings. Each day you walk into life and make choices, with little preparation, with those kids that are inherently bipolar: angels in one moment, in another, even Satan would be scared of them. Again, there is little prep; there is no easy app for parenting. I will repeat again, I do not mind noisy kids in mass; noisy adults I do, you all know better, but kids…please bring them and have them here. Parents thank you for bringing them and for having the courage and faith to be parents. Recently a friend asked me about depression. He asked me to describe what it is like. I could only give my experience: it is like a fog. It is being so overwhelmed by everything and feeling everything, and lacking the ability to take a step forward, to make a choice. There is no movement, only stagnation. It takes a lot of energy to be able to make a choice, to take a step. Earlier this week I w
Read more

22nd Sunday Following the Messiah

Image
My first car was a 1977 chevy nova, v-6, two doors; under the hood there was so much space. I got it the summer before my sophomore year in college, so I was 18-19. I wanted to change the oil so my dad told me how to do it. He said when I change the filter, hand tighten first, then give a small turn with the wrench, do not overtighten it. Me, being a college man, and knowing everything, gave it a good strong turn and thought well done. Several months later, it was time to change the filter again. I could not get it off. I tried and tried. My dad noticed and came to help. He told me that I had cranked it hard the last time didn’t I. Yup, with a degree of shame. He worked to get that thing off. My Uncle who lived nearby saw the commotion, He came and helped. It took them a long time, and what they did was eventually pound through the tire jack, and twisted it off that way. I learned my lesson; I felt a lot of shame on that one. Being able to hold in tension or conflicting ideals signifie
Read more

2nd Advent - Finding our way in God's Love

Image
Many years ago a friend living in Texas came up to visit me in Fernley. This friend had been born and raised in the city. Anyway, I had asked him what he would like to do and he wanted to go geocaching. Okay, I thought it is March in Northern Nevada, fun! But we went, found a cache located near Lahontan Reservoir, and so we drove out there. I parked the car near the cache and the gps device told us the cache was about 500 feet away. I looked around and had a sense of where it would be, on this hillside. My friend became worried: worried that we would get lost. I said not a problem. What if we lose sight of the car? I looked around, it was Nevada sage, no tree for miles; and again we were only going 500 feet up a hill. I said we will be fine, we will never lose sight of the car and we won’t get lost. We didn’t. I have been lost in the wilderness once. It was scary. I was in Northern New Mexico, in a thick forest and it was an overcast day. I was by myself, and nobody knew where I was, a
Read more