SUNDAY
11 September 2016, 24th Sunday Ordinary Time
• Exodus 32:7-11,
13-14 • Psalm 50 • Timothy 1:12-17
• + Luke 15:1-32____•
[__01__] When we are welcome warmly, enthusiastically
into someone’s home, we are often told: My
house is your house. Mi casa es su casa.
Help
yourself, relax. Stay a while. It
is a statement of ease, hospitality, comfort. My
house is your house.
In
the parable of the Prodigal Son, the father also communicates this both of his
sons. My house is your house.
In
the language of Luke the evangelist, this yellow Post-It note on the door or on the refrigerator, this text message
to the son and brother is expressed as, “Everything I have is yours.” My house is your house.
[__02__] This also reminds us that, God has a plan – a
house – in my father’s house there are many dwelling places -- for each of our
lives. Thus, whether you are a mother or
a father, a daughter or son to our parents, a teacher or a rescue worker at
9/11, we are trying each day to live by God’s ways.
When the father said, everything I
have is yours, this was also a challenge to the son to recognize his life and
his talents as a gift to be shared with others.
[__03__] This weekend and this Sunday, we can give
thanks every day – and especially on 9/11 – for those who gave themselves for
others as rescue workers, for those who died in the rescue effort.
Certainly, from our town, from Fairmount
Terrace, Moore Terrace, Eagle Rock Reservation, from Interstate-280 and many
places, this house was our house. These towers – One World Trade Center and Two
World Center – were our towers.
And, we give thanks for those who
lived – and for those who died.
Everything they had is now ours.
However, with the gift of eternal life, we also believe that their lives – in
death – are not ended but changed into a glorious life in heaven.
[__04__] Last Sunday – September 4 – we observed
the canonization of Mother Teresa of Calcutta.
Certainly, in Mother Teresa, we also
observe a person of great energy, a rescue worker in her own right for the
downtrodden people of Calcutta and many cities throughout the world where the
Missionaries of Charity – her religious order – have lived and traveled.
Her house – her clinic – her hospital
was their house.
[__05__] Mother Teresa also believed the words of
the parable, the words of the father, “Everything I have is yours.”
Some of us might imagine – and I
certainly did for many years – that this trust and confidence in God came quite
easily and comfortably for Mother Teresa.
However, with the publication of her
letters and correspondence several years ago, we observe – even in Mother
Teresa – a person with a profound struggle in prayer, in hearing God’s voice.
Mother Teresa reported that she had
heard and trusted God’s voice to leave her existing religious order, the
Sisters of Loreto and to found a new order.
In this inspiration, Mother Teresa
believed the Holy Spirit was speaking quite clearly. This was in 1946.
However, within a few years, Mother
Teresa was not so sure. The voice of God had – it seemed – gone silent, turned
off.
[__06__] This outstanding example of compassion made
Mother Teresa a celebrated helper and a celebrity herself in public and in
person, albeit without the usual luxuries
or acclaim. Mother Teresa took up her cross.
In fact, to many of us, we imagine
Mother Teresa only in this media-star or superhero state, able to run faster
than the speeding bullets of poverty or injustice.
But, in fact, an important of the
saintliness and holiness of Mother Teresa’s life was her own human – and real –
struggle to hear God’s voice each day, to believe God the Father’s message that
“everything I have is yours” and my house is your house.
While it is true that Mother Teresa
felt God calling her very specifically in 1946 to found the Missionaries of
Charity, she also struggled very much in her prayer each day.
In a 1959 letter, she explained her
torment which also described as “torture”
-- “In my soul, I feel the terrible pain of loss – of God not wanting me
– I cannot lift my soul to God.”[1]
In other words, while was offering
refuge and help to others, Mother Teresa often perceived that this was not
being returned to her in peacefulness and joy in her own prayer. This was her
Ground Zero.
Imagine…Mother Teresa at time s could
not pray well. If we feel this way at times, we are in good company.
When God says “Everything I have is
yours”, he also trying to tell us to persevere, to do the little things well,
to trust at our own Ground Zero. He may not send us daily reminders. We are
called, simply, to remember that everything we have is also his.
My
house is your house.
[__fin__]
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