Homily
Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Tomorrow morning in Crofton Park, not far from the airport in Birmingham, England, Pope Benedict XVI will beatify John Henry Cardinal Newman in the presence of 100,000 people, including Monsignor Sullivan. And in his homily, the Pope will recall Newman’s heroic accomplishments as a “champion of English spirituality,” a ‘synthesizer of faith and reason,’ and one of the finest theologians ever born on the British isles.
We’ll hear of how Leo XIII named him a Cardinal, how15,000 people stood in the rain at his Funeral, and how even the secular press hailed him as “a man of singular purity and beauty of character...”
Quite a man, and quite a saint.
Almost makes you wonder, though: if it took over a hundred years to beatify someone like that, what chance do we have?
What chance indeed? Especially if what made him holy were those mighty deeds and vast accomplishments! But the truth is, that holiness comes neither from mighty deeds, nor from vast accomplishments, but from the infinite number of little moments of sacrifice and love which conform us to Christ, bit by bit. It’s like the Lord tells his disciples in the Gospel today: Who’s the one whom God can trust in great thing? “The person who is trustworthy in very small matters...”
Saints get to heaven when, as Mary declared, God looks upon them in their littleness, and accepts the thousand little ways, the seemingly insignificant sacrifices of a person’s life.
Listen to what one nun once wrote in her journal:
“There's one sister in the community who has the knack of rubbing me the wrong way at every turn; her...manner, her...speech, her character, [all] just strike me as unlovable. But, then...God must love her dearly; so I wasn't going to let this natural antipathy get the better of me. So I determined to treat this sister as if she were the person I loved best in the world. Every time I met her, I used to pray for her, offering to God all her virtues and her merits...But I didn't confine myself to saying a lot of prayers for her, this sister who made life such a tug-of-war for me; I tried to do her every good turn I possibly could. When I felt tempted to take her down with an unkind retort, I would put on my best smile instead, and try to change the subject. Once at recreation she actually said, beaming, ..."...Sister, what it is about me...? You've always got a smile for me whenever I see you."...I could only say that the sight of her always made me smile with pleasure--naturally I didn't explain that the pleasure was entirely spiritual.”
That’s how Sister Theresa of the Child Jesus became Saint Theresa of Lisieux.... by choosing to love the most unlovable person in her house through a thousand daily sacrifices...and doing it so convincingly that until her death everyone around her, including her two sisters, were convinced that this nun (the one who really drove her so crazy all the time) had been her dearest friend!
And it’s the same with us. We do not find real holiness in the great, the dramatic and the spectacular, but in the every day moments of life.
For “This is how we go on:,” a modern writer reminds us, “one day at a time, one meal at a time, one pain at a time, one breath at a time. Dentists go on one root canal at a time; boat builders go on one hull at a time. If you write books, you go on one page at a time...and turn our attention to the next meal, the next pain, the next breath, the next page. This is how we go on.”
And this, is how we get holy.
After thirty years of being a priest, I am absolutely clear on what moment I witnessed the greatest act of holiness. It was in the hospital in Leominster, late one night.
Helen and John has been married for over fifty years and Helen was at the end of a long and painful struggle with cancer. While she was conscious, she was barely able to whisper and it was clear that she was very much near the end. I said the litany and the prayers for the commendation of the dying amidst many tears and hugs and gestures of good bye, all the while with my right hand in Helen’s and my left arm around old John...until Helen, at one point, pulled her hand from mine and gestured for me to come closer.
“Father,” she softly whispered, “ I need you to do me a favor.” “Anything,” I told her. “Anything you want, Helen...” “When I die,” she whispered weakly in my ear, I want you to go to our house...and in the bedroom closet, up on the shelf there’s a white box. Open the box. And inside you will fine a new white shirt. Make sure John wears it to the funeral, because I don’t want them saying I didn’t make sure he had a clean white shirt.”
She smiled weakly as I stood up and they all looked at me, anxious to hear her dying wish. I just smiled back, and watched as John held Helen and Helen held John with an affection they had shown in a billion little ways for ten thousand days...And only at the funeral, did I reveal her secret request, and after they all stopped laughing, including John in the clean white shirt, there was silence, as they all realized that Helen and John had taught us all the way to holiness...through the little things....the “ordinary contact with God..the daily encounter with Christ...
[A life]...lived without fuss, with simplicity, with truthfulness.
So you wanna be holy, you wanna be a like Blessed John, or Saint Theresa, or even Helen?
There’s only one way: "be faithful, very faithful, in all the little things."
Monsignor James P. Moroney
Rector
