15 January 2021 - homily for Friday of the first week in Ordinary Time - Hebrews 4: 1-5, 11

      Our reading from Hebrews talks about entering into the rest of God, a rest only God can give.  Rest has a deeper meaning beyond a physical rest.   The promise that God gave to the Israelites is a foreshadowing of that  promise given to Christians in Christ’s Good News.  The Israelites saw the Promised Land as the place of rest that God provided for his people.  For the Israelites, the Promised Land was a share in God’s own rest, which he enjoyed after he had finished his creative work as told in the book of Genesis. The author now relates the meaning of God’s rest to Psalm 95, which we heard yesterday: “Therefore I swore in my anger: ‘They shall never enter my rest.’” Our reading today tells us that we should take the opportunity of God’s rest when it is offered to us since the Israelites in the desert did not take that opportunity when it was given to them.  The Israelites doubted the word of God and thus were forced to wander in the desert for many years before they were able to enter the Promised Land.  We Christians are invited to a different promised land - to God’s kingdom and to the salvation that Christ offers to us.  Our hope is that one day we will gain entry to that perfect place of rest: eternal life with God.  And even now, we are called to a day of rest on Sundays, on the Sabbath, on the Lord’s day.  Do we accept that invitation? 

17 July 2020 - Friday of the 15th week of Ordinary Time - ISAIAH 38:10, 11, 12ABCD, 16

      Our psalm today is not actually from the psalms, but it comes from the prophet Isaiah.  In the refrain, we call out – You saved my life O Lord; I shall not die.  Yet, we view life differently as disciples of Christ, don’t we?  Our eternal life is more important than the length of our life here on earth. 

       This is relevant to the group of saints we recognize today.  We honor 16 Carmelite nuns as the saints of the day.  Most people in our modern world wouldn’t even know about them at all.  The government that took control during the French revolution ordered the Carmelite monastery in the town of Compiegne closed in 1790.  Yet, in 1794, 16 nuns were arrested on charges of living in a religious community, refusing to leave the monastery.  This was against the law in post-revolutionary France.  The nuns were sentenced to death in Paris, and were killed on the guillotine while they sang the Salve Regina.  They refused to bow to a government that condemned their Christian way of life.  

Today, we have a media that tells people that they should abandon organized religion.  We have a government that tries to define what religion is and what it isn’t.  We see religious statues and churches defaced and destroyed in protests.  Perhaps this group of nuns speak to us in a special way this year.  In fact, near the beginning of the pandemic lockdown, I watched an opera production form the Metropolitan Opera of New York - Dialogues of the Carmelites by French composer Francois Poulenc, based on the story of these Carmelites nuns.  Composed in 1954, it is considered one of the most popular of modern operas written in the 20th century. 

     In hearing the story of the Carmelite nuns who were martyred in France and of Isaiah stating that the Lord saved his life, I think of these French Carmelite nuns who were willing to die for the values of their faith.  These brave courageous ladies speak to us in the reality of our day.