Twenty-Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Homily
It was an ordinary August morning in the Atacama desert when Omar Reygadas said goodbye to his wife Marcella and headed for work. As he left the house, he and his wife were talking about their fourth great-grandchild, who was expected any day now. Marcella had been talking to her son, Omar, Jr., and her daughters, Claudia, Marcella, and Humana, about the party they were going to have at their house after the Baptism.
When Omar arrived at work, he entered the San Esteban mine, as he always did, on a rail car, which descended 1,300 feet into the earth. It was then that he and his 32 co-workers heard a low rumble, like an earthquake. Then the mine lights went out and even the beams on their helmets were obscured by a suffocating cloud of dust. Three hours later, the dust settled and Omar realized the roof of the mine had collapsed on top of them.
The party, his expectant daughter, and everything he had planned...all had been momentarily shaken. He was not, it now appeared, really in control.
It was an ordinary August day and Dr. Mehmet Oz had decided to highlight the importance of colonoscopies on his TV show. So he decided to undergo the procedure with the cameras rolling in order to show that this life saving-test, while uncomfortable in s several ways, was really not as bad as most people imagined. He was in excellent health, exercised and ate a consistently healthy diet, and had no family history of colon cancer. Seemed like a piece of cake.
But then, in the middle of the procedure, with camera rolling, he was told they had found a polyp and then a second. And a few days later he was told that while the polyps were no longer dangerous, they were the type would most definitely turn to cancer....the kind that kills. And for the first time, this successful TV doctor, the picture of health, found out he could get cancer and die. The cameras caught the shocked look on his usually confident face, and the audio picked up the quake in his voice as he called his wife with the news, followed by a quick "we'll talk about this when I get home.” His plans of fame, health and perfect control...all his plans, had been momentarily shaken. He was not, it seemed, really in control.
It was an ordinary June day in the town of Stuart, although it could have been Worcester just as easily. Tim and Beth were waiting for Sarah, who at fourteen was coming home from the movies with her two friends. Her best friend’s uncle Ted went to pick them up in his Cadillac and they piled into the back seat and chatted and screamed and laughed as only fourteen year old friends can do. That is until Stephen, drunk and sixteen years old, ran that stop sign and Jennifer died.
I cannot imagine what that night did to Tim and Beth. Their dreams of seeing Jennifer graduate, walk down the aisle, hold their grandchild in her arms, and take care of them in their old age...all these dreams disappeared in a moment in the middle of the night. Just like that, it all changed.
It all changed. And it all changes. In the unfathomable will of God.
A God whose wisdom is unknowable, at the same time we know he is all wise. A God whose plan is but gradually unfolded, though always conceived in love. A God whom our little hearts sometimes see as cruel, remote, or even uncaring, but whose unbelievable love for me is the definition of what it means to love.
Which is so hard for me to take. For like a three year old, unwilling to obey, I do my darnedest to see that my will be done, to amass possessions and power as a tribute to my glory, to become all that I want to be and to to fill my life with all I need to have, ever striving to build a life which is a monument to my narcissism.
But then, over and over again, God reminds me, in harsh and sometimes gentle ways, that he is the author, the creator, who made me in love, to be love, to become each day conformed to his cross, to obliterate hate, to rejoice in littleness, and to conquer even death with sacrifice.
Pray
Which is why we pray. To beg God to give us understanding. Of why he put us here and what he wants us to do.
Our is the insistent prayer of Christ in the Garden before his Blessed Passion, sweating blood and crying tears, so often mixed with fear and pain. Father, we beg, take this cup of suffering away from me. But, in the end, not my will, but yours be done.
- In the good days, the summers of our lives, when the sun seems so bright, the world so beautiful and we’re just much in control: your will be done...
- And in the fearsome and wintry days, when nothing seems too certain, and each choice fills us with dread: your will be done...
For make no mistake about it, in good times and in bad, God is ever with us. He who died for us, and who will raise up on the last day is ever with us. He who ascended to the Father and sent us out to love others as he loved us is ever with us, even until the end.
Trust in him, then. Pray to him. Confide in him, in tears and in suffering, in joy and in hope. In good times and in bad, pray for his help, the discernment of his will, and a full measure of his love.
For we never know what tomorrow will bring. We only know, that when we are startled by what God has in store, that he who made us in love, will be with us to the end. And in his unfathomable wisdom, will lead us to eternal joy.
