I had posted the homily for the 18th Sunday in ordinary time earlier in the week. Due to tragic events that happened in the life of our parish, I have revised this homily to reflect these events. We remember Mrs. Betty Montgomery, a beloved member of our parish, of the Tupelo community, and of the Yazoo City community where I served prior to coming to Tupelo. We pray for the repose of her soul.
The
reading from Ecclesiastes really gets our attention this morning with a very
strong proclamation: “Vanity of vanities!
All things are vanity!” These
poetic words are very thought-provoking, they seem on the surface to be very
pessimistic and cynical, but what does it really mean? The Hebrew word “hebel” that is translated
into the word “vanity”, is the Hebrew word for breath, or for the fleeting
vapor that we see when someone breathes into the cold air. Perhaps the author is telling us that life
can be like a fleeting breath: it can ultimately be filled with emptiness,
futility, and senselessness. Unfortunately,
we human beings often attach ourselves to things in this world that we think
will make us more secure or more appealing, to things that we thinks will
satisfy our souls. But often these
things just leave us empty and wanting more, especially when we compare them to
God and to the eternal life we have in him. Quite a somber reading we have to start our
Sunday morning. I don’t think it is meant to be comforting or candy-coated. Rather, it forces us to think about life and
our earthly existence.
Perhaps the writer of our reading from
Ecclesiastes would be edified by the message that Pope Francis is trying to
bring to our world in many different ways.
Recently, when Francis addressed a group of bishops in the cathedral in
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where he was attending Catholic World Youth Day, he
told them that they needed to be more missionary, to get out of their offices
and their cathedrals, to go to the places where the people were most in need of
hearing the Gospel message. Francis
challenges us to get out of our parishes and out into the broader community, to
go into the world and to dialogue with the reality that confronts us there. He
courageously asks us to look at the pastoral needs around us, beginning on the
periphery and the margins of where we live, with those who are farthest away,
with those who perhaps do not often go to church. Francis tells us that we must
not forget that everyone is welcome to the table of the Lord.
So many people of our modern world
approach the faith-filled life with skepticism and doubt. Many think that the truth cannot be approached
through the lens of faith, but rather through the experiences of life;
experiences that many fill with a lot of worldly pleasures; experiences that
often result in a lot of wrong turn and dead ends, more searching and longing. We
in the Church are called to reach out in the midst of the experiences and
reality of the people around us. We are
called to see the Holy Spirit alive and well in the world today, leading us and
guiding us through life. We are called
to see the Holy Spirit leading us away from the trap that is mentioned in our
reading from Ecclesiastes today, in the way modern man labors in his own wisdom
and knowledge and skill, thinking that through them he can possess the truth
and possess the meaning that will bring him purpose in life. However, ultimately, most of us will realize
that even these things are futile – our wisdom and knowledge and skill still
won’t in themselves bring us eternal gladness and meaning.
But I don’t think that we as believers
in faith are called to be fearful or distrustful or angry in the face of the
reality that we face in our modern world.
We encounter a lot of people searching for something in their
lives. We in the Church can offer
something in that search, even where so many in our society are like the rich
man in the parable that Jesus tells in today’s Gospel, as we admire ourselves
for the earthly treasures we accumulate and store up, as we think that others
will admire us and value us for this same reason. We store these futile things up in our lives,
but how are we pursuing our heavenly treasures?
As Jesus challenged others to look at their lives in comparison to the
values of the Gospel, so our Church offers an alternative to the futility of
what we are find in our search for truth in the secular world. We the faithful propose the way of Jesus, we
offer him to the world as “the way, the truth, and the life.” We are called to evangelize and preach the
Gospel of Jesus through love, compassion, and response, in a way that is
hopeful and life-affirming.
I wrote this homily earlier in the week
– little did I know that events in my personal life and in the life of our
parish would hit me like a ton of bricks, giving us a reminder of how fleeting
and fragile how life itself can be. In
the middle of the week, I found out that a friend, a woman who is like a sister
to me and who had a minor operation earlier this week, had things go very wrong
and had to be put into a medically induced coma. Things are still touch-and-go with her, as
the doctors are not sure if she will make it through this. Then, we lost a beloved member of our parish
this week, Mrs. Betty Montgomery. Betty
had come to the vigil mass on Wednesday night, which was in honor of one of her
favorite saints, St. Ignatius of Loyola.
In fact, Betty recently returned from Spain, having been on the Camino
of St Ignatius as a pilgrim. Then, on
Thursday morning, on the morning we were offering mass for her dad, Betty
passed away in that tragic accident after being hit by a vehicle on her morning
walk. However, we have reminders that
God is still with us in the midst of our pain and suffering. On the day of Betty’s funeral, we turned to
our daily Catholic devotional in Give Us This Day to see that the reflection on
the faithful person of that day was the Catholic author Flannery O’Connor, who
died 49 years ago on that same day.
Everyone who knew Betty knew that Flannery was her “patron saint,” her
hero in life, and the subject of her PhD dissertation. We were touched by how Flannery was that at
Betty’s side and at the side of Betty’s family in this special way in the face
of this terrible tragedy.
We reach out to God in our reality, and
he reaches back to us. God meets us in
our reality, in the joyful times and in those excruciatingly painful moments as
well. The things of this world many seem futile and fleeting on so many levels,
but God is there with us as well.
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