When Did Your Life Begin? (2022-05-08, 4th Sunday Easter) / Mother's Day

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2022-05-08 –  Easter 4^th Sunday  &

●●   Acts 13:14, 43-52  ●●  Psalm 100  ●● Revelation 7:9, 14b-17 ●●  + John 10:27-30 ●●   

 TITLE: When you did your life begin?

[_01_]   When will I begin? When did your life begin?

          Usually, you would answer this question by telling me your date of birth, month, day, year, which I am not asking you for individually, but just asking you to reflect for a moment on the question: when did your life begin?

          Another way to answer this question is to think of moments when your life has been renewed, re-started, re-booted in some way.

          Perhaps, you would say that your life BEGAN, when you met your future spouse. Your life began when you discovered what you were good at in school.   Your life began when someone offered your forgiveness for a fault. 

          Your life began when you were able – with God’s help – to forgive someone else who trespassed against you.

[_02_]   Sometimes, we trace the beginning of life to very material things or monetary achievement. Recently, I was surprised– but should not have been surprised – that a professional sports league – the NFL (you know … TD touchdowns, QB quarterbacks, LB linebackers and all that) – had managed to spend 3 full nights of prime time television broadcasting what they call their “draft” – the NFL draft of new players coming out of college who are going to play at the professional level.

          And,  in this program, those who watch can learn something about how “life begins” and how much money is offered to these new QB – LB who are starting a new life at the professional level.

          To be honest, I really do not watch the NFL draft and did not even know that it was on TV until I tried to watch the game show Jeopardy with Ken Jennings which I often watch when visiting my mother and father.

          However, that night we could not watch it because the NFL draft was on. I was quite annoyed at this – that someone else’s definition of “when NFL professional life begins” should interrupt my experience of watching TV.

          It was not the end of the world.

          I just cite the NFL draft as one example – in popular culture that we hold in very high regard…i.e., when a successful life begins.

[_03_]   When did your life begin?

          Sometimes, our life begins when we decide to start over, or to make a significant change.

          Some sometimes people ask me this question, hey, Padre, hey Father when did you know you wanted to be a priest?, In other words, when did your life begin? When did it start?

          In my case, I came to realize – after I had completed my college education and after I was working as as a grown-up adult for a few years that I felt called to study for the priesthood.

And while I'm grateful for many lessons in business and responsibilities and of business, I recognize that and these are necessary in my role as a priest. But I also recognize that choosing to study for the priesthood will be a new life, a new path. This was both freeing and frightening. 

[_04_]    And, in some ways, it all happened so fast… like major changes do.  So, around the year 2000, I left my working career, job in New York, started at the seminary in Seton Hall University where I finished around 2005, graduated and was ordained

          In the fall of that year, a few months after graduation / ordination, I went back to NYC one day to reconnect with some of my former co-workers who were nice enough to take me out to lunch to a restaurant that I could not afford to eat in.

          I knew I could not afford to eat I this restaurant, also because there was a TV star journalist and sportscaster sitting in the restaurant just a few tables away.  This was Bryant Gumbel who used to be on the NBC “TODAY” show, and other major celebrity stuff.

          In some ways, there were only 2 people that seemed out of place in that restaurant – Bryant Gumbel and me.

          I was no longer dressed in business attire, but was dressed as a priest. Perhaps, I looked out of place in that restaurant.

          But, that was just an example to me that my life was just beginning.

          When did your life begin?

          When did my life begin?

          Of course, in a very official sacramental and church-sense, my life as a priest began when I was ordained at the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Newark.

          There is saying in from the Bible -- “Thou art a priest forever – Tu es sacerdos en aeternum.”

          “Forever” does not mean that it was destined to happen even if I objected. In other words, Ferry, you cannot get out of this, even if you do not cooperate.

          In fact, our life begins when we truly cooperate with God’s grace.

          That day, with NBC Today Show Host Bryant Gumbel in the restaurant, I had this sense that I was really starting something new. Mr. Gumbel would go back to his high-rise luxury apartment wherever that is.  My co-workers would go back to work without me… but I did not really long to go back with them that day.

          I just hoped that we would stay in touch.  In many ways, I was also educated and formed by them.

[_05_]     When did my life begin ?

          My life as a priest began before the seminary, before college, before there were academics or daily Mass. It began in the “seminary and church” of my home and hometown with my parents and grandparents and siblings through whom I also learned about love, charity, hope, faith and taking out the garbage and all that stuff. I am still learning about these things from them.

          I am also learning about these things from you, my parish family. 

[_06 _]   When did my life begin?

 When does life begin? There'll be lots of debate in the coming weeks due to expectation of a Supreme Court decision about the legality of abortion.

And it does come down to a question about when does life begin?

This may not be a question you can answer scientifically or satisfactorily for those who may argue for the legality of permissive laws on abortion.

However, I'm inviting you as a Catholic to remember that God is holding you in existence at every moment. You came into this world because you were loved. Are there children who come into this world in horrific violent conditions? Yes.

They may even be born to parents who do not wish to raise them, or cannot raise them or cannot love them as they should.

Nevertheless, it is by an act of God's love that they exist. It is by an act of God's love that you exist and I exist. And we are called to advocate to care about these lives to pray for them and to remember that every unborn child, every mother, is important.

They are both important. When did your life begin your life began in a profound way when you recognize that Jesus is your shepherd, your good shepherd who is leading you home, calling out for you will always lead you home and help you to restart again.   [_fin_]