The Search Begins at Home (2013-09-15)

This is my homily for Sunday September 15, 2013.  I am a Catholic chaplain at  Fairleigh Dickinson University (FDU, Teaneck),   FDU Newman Catholic Association,  New Jersey City University (NJCU) in Jersey City.  At FDU, Sunday Evening Mass is celebrated 5:00 pm during Fall 2013 and Spring 2014. at FDU Chapel, 842 River Road, Teaneck. 

September 15, 2013  /  24th Sunday

••• Exodus 32:7-11 ••• Psalm 51 ••• 1 Timothy 1:12-17 ••• + Luke 15:1-32 •••

TITLE:  “The Search Begins At Home”

[__01_]   The search begins at home.

In the Gospel this Sunday, we read a parable about a woman – seeking / sweeping / cleaning – and ultimately FINDING / COLLECTING … her lost coin.

 [__02__]  The Good News is that her search – and our search – starts at home.

 [__03_]   Isn’t this true as we begin the intellectual and social life of the new academic/school year?

What have we lost? Are we losing? Are we not already trying to catch up … coming up from behind …?

We have “lost”  - seemingly misplaced – all of the free time we had before Labor Day weekend.

Now, all seems lost.

We have to work more, study more, keep up with deadlines.

How do we make up for what we have lost? How do we find the lost coin?

What we learn in the Gospel is that the search begins at home.

But, this is often not our approach.

 [__04__]   That is, confronted with the loss of our free time, our leisure time and the painful therapies of homework, we want to find something else.

Call this our search for another coin. We are collecting other coins, coins of leisure, comfort, partying.

In other words, we do not sweep the house or restructure the house. We just try to get out of the house.

The Good News of the Gospel – and the recovery / collection of the coin – is that our search begins at home with this inventory,  with this examination.

This is an examination of our conscience, an examination of our lives.

Through this examination, we also recall that our studies now bring knowledge which is its own reward. We need not search outside the house for something else.

The search begins at home.

[__05__]   The woman has lost a coin at home.

But, are there not other coins – more valuable – to be earned elsewhere?

Perhaps, we experienced a loss – or disruption – to an important relationship, in family, friendship, marriage.

 [__06__]   Do we seek our satisfaction in friendships, comforts, leisure outside our home?  Or, more generally, are we praying for the strength and wisdom to love those immediately around us.

Our roommates, our teammates – our classmates..even our own family members and friends may be very different.

Each one may be a coin difficult to collect or recover.

Our Lord invites us to begin our examination and inventory at home.

Perhaps, we begin also on the floor, bending the knee in prayer…or getting down on our knees, to pray to repent, to clean house.

To search for what we have lost.   The search begins at home. [__fin__]