I made a deal with someone here that if they came to Mass I
would guarantee a homily under three minutes. N., do you have a watch. “No.” Well I’ll
hold my end up anyway!
I
learned in my education classes at CSS (as I studied math teaching) to beg,
borrow and steal. Now I don’t give
you permission to do this on exams and papers. But in teaching, and any practice really, if we see someone
excel we don’t need to reinvent the wheel. If something works, do it.
I
say this because I am going to copy Fr. Rich’s homily from this morning. Whenever I have a later Mass, I ask my
boss about what he preached in the morning. For the first time, I told him, “That’s good. I’m going to use it.”
He
pointed out that Judas and Peter had very similar experiences of Jesus. They both heard him teach and preach
for several years. They both witnessed
miracles. They both were his
friends. Yet after they both made
egregious mistakes (Judas betrayed Jesus and Peter denied him) they responded
in completely different ways.
Peter repented and asked for forgiveness. Judas hanged himself.
If
you’re at Mass on a Tuesday night, God is at work in your life. You may be tempted to think, “Why isn’t
my roommate here? Why does my
sister not live out her faith?” In
my own family my brothers and I had similar experiences of the faith. One of them will join our family for
one of two Masses he attends each year at Easter. Another lives his faith in an exemplary fashion. And I’m a priest. What gives?
Here
we must not be hoity-toity Catholics who think we have it all together. We must never judge another in their
path with God. After all, God
called a man named Saul who was on his way to kill Christians. What we ought to do is pray for our
family, friends and classmates who haven’t experienced Christ in an intimate
way. And when we can we should
share our experience of Jesus with them, inviting them to join in the joy of
the Christian life.
What’s
the time? “Under three minutes.” Amen.
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