25th Sunday in Ordinary Time, B
September 19/20, 2009
Church of the Holy Angels – 8, 10, 12
1. A few weeks ago I was running in Frohing Meadows park just off
- listening to a PODCAST on my IPOD as I ran
- gives me an opportunity to learn and exercise at the same time
- the program I was listening to was on National Public Radio, a program called
"Faith Matters"
- and the show featured a geo-physicist by the name of Xavier L'Pinchon
- L'Pinchon was
born and raised as a French Catholic in
- you can tell he is a holy man by listening to him speak but, even more so,
by knowing that he prays between an hour and two hours every day
- he says that he is trying to understand the world from God's perspective
- early on, became fascinated by earthquakes and studied the effects of tectonics on
survival or destruction
- when the tectonic plates underground are rigid, unbending, strong
- it takes a cataclysmic force to break through, to bring balance
- and the more yielding the tectonic plates, the healthier and less tumultuous was
the ground above it
- Xavier concluded that weakness is part of a system that is alive
- and that what we learn from the earth must be applied to human life
- communities that are strong, rigid and do not take into account the weaker
parts of the community tend to be communities that don't evolve
2. - L'Pinchon uses the example when a couple gets their first child
- that child is extremely weak – with no power at all
- but that child is the boss, everybody is at her service
- they are needy, powerless, helpless
- it cannot provide for itself, feed itself or take care of itself
- that child knows that life comes from beyond itself
- and the community around that child adjusts to its need
- and the result is a more compassionate and understanding community
- the kind of community and world which Jesus taught
Same thing can be said of a family member who is sick
- the family surrounds the person with love, care, comfort
- it draws the family closer together in their love for each other
- they grow in compassion, wisdom, understanding because of the one who
is sick, it draws forth from us our deepest empathy and the altruistic spirit
of the human heart
At age 37 Xavier went to
- he said that encountered a child dying from hunger
- and he made a promise that he would try, from now on, never to turn his eye
from someone who is suffering
- and his life's work has taught him that the love of suffering people is a vehicle to the
love of God
3. Today's Scripture speaks to the heart of this kind of community and world
- first reading today – from Wisdom
- speaks about putting the just one to the test so that we may have proof of his
gentleness and try his patience
-
- the book of James reminds us, wars and conflicts come from our passions
- he says "where jealousy and selfish ambition exists, there is disorder and foul
practice."
- but the wisdom from above is PURE, PEACEABLE, GENTLE, COMPLIANT
4. In the extraordinary passage from Mark's Gospel, we hear Jesus trying to teach
an important message to the disciples and they miss the point
- he says that the Son of Man is to be handed over to men who will kill him and
that he will rise in 3 days
- he introduces to them the Passion and they fail to understand or question him
- UNLIKE a child open to learning, the disciples think they know it all
- Jesus asks them what they were discussing along the way – and they had been
talking about who was the greatest
- And then he takes this child and places it in their midst
- he takes the weakest, the most vulnerable, and needy and helpless and says
to them, "whoever receives one child such as this in my name receives me, and
whoever receives me receives not me but the One who sent me."
5. Talk about reordering what was most important – Jesus made it clear
that the most important are not the strongest but the weakest
- and the
6. And it means, for us, that they should be at the center of our focus, our
care and our existence
7. At Holy Angels, there are so many opportunities to help our neighbors in need
- the support we give is enormous
- but the benefit we receive in return is even greater
- we have such wonderful children here who are such a blessing to our lives
- Justin Berg – stands with his dad holding his arms outstretched, dancing to the music of the assembly and choir
- Catherine Devonshire – with downs syndrome is such a joy. The other day I was singing with the choir and Catherine was laughing and waiving at me and I smiled and waved back, only to realize that her dad was sitting behind me and she was greeting him, not me. Talk about taking the wind out of your sails!
- Alex Stoycos –
young boy with cerebral palsy who received his communion just two weeks ago
here at
8. When we place the poor, the needy, the sick, the disabled, the child in the center
of our community
- the result is a more compassionate, loving and Christ-centered community
- and here, in this place, we taste a bit of heaven on earth
- next time you feel sorry for yourself or life becomes just too overwhelming
- just look into the eyes of a child, or a person in need, or someone who is hurting
- and you'll see
the