This is my homily for this past weekend, the 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C. Today's readings are here.
FYI - I actually gave two different homilies this weekend: the one below, plus a homily for the children who were present at what has become our so-called family mass. For that one, I called the children forward, had them sit on the sanctuary steps, and asked them questions about being prepared - e.g. getting ready to go back to school this month; and then asked them to think about what it means to get ready for Jesus coming again.
What follows is the more traditional homily I gave at a different mass this weekend. One note about that homily: in it, I mention Blessed Carlo Acutis. Our parish hosted an exhibit this week of the Eucharistic miracles that, as I understand it, formed some of the content of Blessed Carlo's web site. He is said to be the first saint (or saint-to-be) of the Internet or social media or something similar. What our parish hosted was low-tech: a long series of placards describing the Eucharistic miracles that Blessed Carlo had documented, organized by country and city. Some were of fairly recent vintage, while others werre 700-800 years old. Nearly all of the countries listed were in Europe, although Argentina (including Buenos Aires when Jorge Bergoglio was archbishop) was included. I didn't see any miracles from the United States, although I suppose there must be some Eucharistic miracles documented in the US. I wasn't able to examine the exhibit in great detail (and I know almost nothing about Blessed Carlo), but from what I was able to glimpse, a number of the miracles documented were variations on the theme of a consecrated host that bled.
If you’re a gardener, this is a great time of year - this is the time of year you live for. We’ve been eating a lot of salads in our house because Therese’s vegetable garden is starting to give us fresh vegetables. Virtually every day, ripened tomatoes appear in our kitchen; and we’re reaching the point where we can’t keep up with the cucumbers, too. The jalapeno peppers are coming along nicely, too.
I don’t have Therese’s green thumb, but I know this much: if you want fresh tomatoes and cucumbers in August, you can’t start the garden in August. You have to start in May or June. When it comes to gardens, there is no such thing as instant gratification.
To be sure: in May or June, it’s not certain what August will bring. Gardeners have to be forward-looking. They need to be optimists for the future. A gardener has to have the confidence and imagination to see that this tiny plant in June will give us a bumper crop in August.
Between May and August, gardeners have to be vigilant, too. Tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers don’t just happen by themselves. Frosts, droughts, weeds, squirrels, bunnies, insects – any or all of them can derail a gardening project. If the plants aren’t properly caged, the vines will drag along the ground and the fruit will rot. There are a lot of ways a vegetable garden can come to grief. Gardeners have to be vigilant.
Gardeners can teach us a lot about how to follow Jesus. As disciples, we need to think and act like gardeners: to plan ahead rather than just drifting along in the moment; to live for the future, rather than the now; and to be vigilant, lest we stray from the path we’ve started down, and fail to reach our destination, which is life with him.
This gardener approach to our spiritual life, in which we look ahead and live ahead with optimism, preparing ourselves for what is to come in the future; and staying vigilant in the present – this is what we mean by a life of faith. Faith means, believing that what has been promised for the future will come to pass – and shaping our lives now, not for what the world is doing now, but for the kingdom we hope to be a part of, someday in the future. Through faith, we believe that what is to come someday, at some indeterminate point in the future, is as real as the earth we stand on and the oxygen we breathe today.
All the things I’ve done in my life that have really been worthwhile have had this element of faith – they’ve required me to trust in the future, rather than settling for the certainty or instant gratification of the present. For example, attending college was a leap of faith: I was betting that the me who would emerge four years in the future would be different, in a good way, than the me who entered as a freshman. And that turned out to be a good bet, because I came out of college more mature, more polished, more confident, more knowledgeable, more ready to be a contributing adult and citizen in society, than when I went in. To pay for college, I took on a mountain of debt, too, which was kind of scary, but I was betting that having a college degree would give me the wherewithal to pay off the debts and still come out ahead.
It was similar with getting married. I was 26, Therese was 24. We had no idea what the rest of our lives had in store for us. I certainly didn’t know we’d have four kids, or live in Arlington Heights, or join St. Edna, or become a deacon. Nobody knows, when they get married, what the future holds. But for Therese and me, the prospect of walking through life together, side by side, gave us the hope and courage to take the leap. A wedding is a bet on the future. It’s an act of faith.
I could say similar things about buying a house, or becoming a deacon, or changing jobs – virtually all the major decisions in my life: they were acts of faith.
Jesus calls us to live the same way when it comes to following him. We’re asked to make a bet on a future that will be very different than our present life. And even more than that: to live our present life in a way that prepares us for that future.
Following Jesus means preparing for when he comes again – for that time when the master returns from the wedding feast. We don’t know when that will be. I’m 63 years old. The actuarial tables tell me I should have a couple more decades, at least, in front of me. But that’s just a prediction. I could live 40 more years. Or my life on earth could end tomorrow. But if I’m living the way Jesus wants me to live, I should be ready for that moment today. I need to be ready now. I need to constantly be vigilant for how I’m living.
Because our being ready for Jesus doesn’t just happen on its own, any more than tomato or cucumber plants will prosper on their own. Living for Jesus doesn’t just happen naturally. It would be nice if that’s how things worked. But that isn’t the reality of human life. The reality is that, without spiritual vigilance, I’ll lapse back into selfishness and sin. And then I won’t be ready for the unexpected time when the master returns from the wedding.
Do you know who helps us to stay vigilant? The church. The church gives us ways to pray, so we can communicate with God. It gives us the sacraments of baptism and penance and anointing so our sins can be forgiven, and the sacrament of the Eucharist to give us the spiritual nourishment that sustains us. It gives us the saints, like Blessed Carlo Acutis, to model our lives after. The church is a great gift to us, because it helps us prepare for that day when the master will come again. With the church’s help, we can be ready on that day and show the master all the good fruits that came from the garden of our lives.
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